As the nation commemorated the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riots, Congressman Andrew Clyde said Thursday the commission investigating the Jan. 6 events is politically motivated.
Clyde, a Republican who represents Georgia's Ninth District, said the commission is an attempt by Democrats to paint Republicans as unfit to lead the country.
"This is a sham committee," Clyde said. "It's a 100 percent sham committee. In my opinion, it's (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi's only ticket to maintain control of the House. The American people are not buying it."
Clyde said the committee should be investigating the failure of Capitol Police to provide security as the mob breeched the building.
"One of the things that also needs to be investigated is why the Capitol Police were not prepared," he said. "They were not equipped, and they were not trained to deal with any sort of a large or a potentially angry crowd."
Clyde suggested that the committee isn't fully investigating law enforcement's actions that day because the Capitol Police report directly to Pelosi.
"In my opinion, the failure of leadership on at the Capitol Police goes all the way to the top, because there is one person who is in charge of the Capitol Police," he said. " And that's Nancy Pelosi. The Capitol Police report directly to Speaker Pelosi. And I think it's my opinion, that she doesn't want the truth to come out, because I believe it would show that she bears significant responsibility for the failure of leadership and the breach of the Capitol."
Clyde made his remarks during an appearance Thursday on WDUN's "The Martha Zoller Show."
Federal prosecutors have charged more than 700 people in more than 45 states with participating in the riot, and arrests continue almost daily.
Four who were at the rally died on January 6, including Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by a Capitol Police officer. Three others who died of separate "medical emergencies," authorities said at the time.
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who was sprayed with a chemical substance during the riot, collapsed later and died from two strokes on January 7, the D.C. medical examiner's office said. In the days and months after the attack, four more police officers who responded to the Capitol that day died by suicide.
In May, Clyde downplayed the assault, comparing the mob’s breaching of the building to a “normal tourist visit.”
On Thursday, he continued to say that most of the people at the Capitol were there to protest peacefully.
"I really had very little visibility of what was going on outside the capitol, other than I knew that there were people that were there to peacefully protest, and to bring their grievances to the government, which is there right under the Constitution," Clyde said. "Now, it turned a little ugly, in some ways in and the Capitol got breached. And we had protesters that turned into rioters, some of them, and they made their way into the Capitol."
