Jan. 6 committee is bipartisan on paper only: Brit Hume
Fox News senior political analyst examines the role of the Jan 6 committee's upcoming hearing in response to the Capitol riot on 'Special Report.'
Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume hasn’t been shy when it comes to criticizing the January 6 committee, regularly saying it’s a "partisan" group that had all of its members selected by Democrats.
"I’ve covered Washington for more than 50 years, including 11 years covering Congress specifically. I’ve never seen a committee all of whose members were chosen by one party, and where there is no cross-examination or any attempt to present both sides," Hume tweeted on Friday.
Hume was responding to a tweet from Byron York, who wrote "there's a long tradition of adversarial process in congressional hearings/investigations" and "something is wrong" with the Jan. 6 committee.
Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume. (Fox News)
Hume had made similar points in the past about the committee made up of Democrats Chairperson Bennie Thompson, Zoe Lofgren, Adam Schiff, Pete Aguilar, Stephanie Murphy, Jamie Raskin, Elaine Luria and anti-Trump Republicans Liz Cheny and Adam Kinzinger. On June 12, Hume retweeted a message declaring the committee is "one-sided."
On June 11, he referred to the primetime hearing as an "utterly one-sided presentation."
Chairperson Bennie Thompson (D-MS) swears in Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Georgia Secretary of State Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling (not pictured) during the fourth public hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to investigate the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S. June 21, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS)
"It is not normal for a supposedly bipartisan committee to have its members all chosen by one party," he tweeted on June 6 to echo what he told Bret Baier that evening on "Special Report."
"Let’s be clear about this committee, while it is bipartisan, it is bipartisan on paper only because all the members of the committee, including the two Republicans who serve, were appointed by the Democrats. By Nancy Pelosi in fact, and she was careful to chose the two Republican members who could be counted on to agree with the conclusions already reached by her," Hume told Baier.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, speaks with members of the press after a hearing at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, June 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
"This is very much a partisan hearing, which is not to say that interesting facts won’t come out and they won’t make an interesting presentation in primetime but, look, this is only partially a hearing to determine the facts," Hume continued. "It is as much as anything else an effort to give the Democrats an issue that they can run on when nearly all the other issues that people care about are working against them."
Hume’s criticism has included remarks that former President Trump’s behavior was "outrageous" and "utterly disgraceful" after the 2020 election, but he still doesn’t feel the committee has delivered on promises so far.
On June 23 he tweeted, "The 1/6 committee is pounding home the point that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election. He certainly did. But the testimony has not come close to establishing Chairman Bennie Thompson's claim that we came ‘critically close to losing our democracy’ that day," before declaring, "Outrageous behavior by a president unable to admit error or defeat to be sure. But the near-death of American democracy? Not even close."
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., pulled all five of his picks for the Jan. 6 committee last year after Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., rejected two of his choices, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind.
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