Republican 9/11 Commission chair warns GOP's Jan. 6 rejection sets a bad precedent

Thomas Kean.
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean (R), the former chair of the 9/11 Commission, weighed in on Republican senators' decision to block the creation of a similar exploration of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. "It saddens me because there was no real, public reason for turning it down," he told The Guardian. "I guess some people were scared of what they'd find out. That's not a good reason for turning it down."

Kean and his vice chair, former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Fla.) aren't viewing the news in a vacuum, however. Hamilton told USA Today that any investigation can get off-track, but "if you follow the arguments of the opponents, we would never investigate anything," while Kean added that "if we can't do it for this one, can we do it for [the handling COVID-19 pandemic]? That's very sad." In short, he told PBS NewsHour, Congress is setting the precedent that it is "incapable of telling the American people the truth about something very important that happened." Read more at The Guardian, USA Today, and PBS NewsHour.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.