Stefanik leads Republican pushback to January 6 committee

WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) - Expect to hear a lot from north country congresswoman Elise Stefanik in the coming days.

Stefanik is one of the leading Republican voices in pushing back against the January 6 committee, which holds a prime time hearing at 8 PM Thursday.

The committee is investigating the causes of the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol. Except for Fox, all the major networks are broadcasting Thursday night’s hearing live.

“You will see us all over the airwaves, we will be setting the record straight,” Stefanik told Breitbart News.

The January 6 committee is focused on who was behind the riots, whether it was an attempted coup - a bid to stop Joe Biden from becoming president - and whether then-president Donald Trump was in on it.

Stefanik - a close ally of Trump - says the real story of January 6 is something else - it’s a story of Democrats failing to ensure the Capitol was secure.

“How much Speaker Pelosi, Democrats, and Liz Cheney have failed this country, and they’ve failed to focus on the issue,” Stefanik told Breitbart.

“If they want to talk about securing the Capitol, which they refused to, they have failed to do that job,”

Politically, the hearing is an opportunity for Democrats to change the subject from high gas prices, baby formula shortages and other problems which make a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives likely after November’s election

.”They’re (Democrats) doing absolutely no work to address any of the crises the American people are facing, whether it’s the inflation crisis, sky high gas prices, the border crisis, the baby formula crisis, so it is going to be a circus, but it is a political witch hunt,” Stefanik said.

Stefanik is not likely to say much about the riots themselves or who was behind them, matters which are central to the committee, which is dominated by Democrats, but also includes two Republicans.

She does say what the committee is doing is unfair.

“They are invading on the privacy and really the speech and debate rights of all these elected members of Congress,” she told Breitbart.

“All they care about is trying to take back the narrative, to try to target patriotic Trump supporters across the country.”

Alexander Cohen, Associate Professor of Political Science at Clarkson University, said Stefanik’s standing in the Republican Party, already high, will be helped by her serving as the “tip of the spear” opposing the January 6 committee.

Still, there is one potential downside, said Cohen, who studies and teaches politics at Clarkson.

“There is a risk that those tuning in, even to the counter programming, might be drawn into the programing itself. It’ll be interesting to watch.”

Watch the hearing, starting at 8 PM Thursday on WWNY.

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