WASHINGTON — Six months ago, the U.S. Capitol was breached for the first time since the War of 1812.
Supporters of then-President Donald J. Trump tried to disrupt the Electoral College certification of the 2020 vote, which made Joseph Biden President.
Now, the House Select Committee on January 6th is about to begin its investigation of the day's events.
But, with little Republican support for the commission, some people could question the legitimacy of that panel's work.
There was an effort to create a nonpartisan Congressional Commission to investigate the attack, but many Republicans, including Virginia First District Rep. Rob Wittman, voted against the idea.
He explained his vote to 13 News Now.
"I am all in to get this done," he said. "I just don't want to turn this into what we know can potentially become a political free-for-all. That's going to weaken what I believe is this across-the-board effort to really get at the cause and what happened January 6."
The creation of the Select Committee on January 6th passed in the House.
Locally, Democrats Elaine Luria, Bobby Scott and Donald McEachin voted "yes."
Republican Wittman voted "no."
When the plan failed to get the required 60 votes in the Senate, Democratic House Speakers Nancy Pelosi established a 13-member select committee.
"And the next step for us has always been to seek and to find the truth. We want to do so in the most patriotic and non-partisan way, so the American people have confidence in the results," she said.
The panel will include Virginia Second District Rep. Luria.
She said it's important that the truth be found.
"I think that a full and comprehensive investigation that brings all of that information together, looks for the facts, looks for the truth, and most importantly, makes recommendations to prevent something like this from happening in the future is very important," Luria said.
Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy has questioned the validity of the commission's work, insisting that Pelosi has made it political.
"Nobody really takes this seriously, based upon the direction she wants to go," he said.
Despite his and others' criticism, the commission's work will proceed.
"This is an effort to lay out the facts, to investigate and uncover the story, and Congress needs to do this," said Old Dominion University Political Science Professor Jesse Richman. "They need to figure our what went wrong with security measures on the Capitol, and who was at fault."
Richman said it is urgent that there be a commission, and, that the panel gets to the truth -- even though only two Republican House members voted in favor of the commission.
"We need a Congressional investigation because there's things Congress needs to do," he said. "This was a threat to the security of the Congress. It was a threat to the processes for a time, the counting of Electoral votes. This is a serious matter."
"Congress needs to investigate, figure out what happened, figure out how to adopt their security," Richman continued. "We can't go with barbed wire fences and so forth around the Capitol building forever. We need to figure out a more permanent approach to make sure Congress is accessible to the people, but the people cannot turn into a mob and abuse that access to try to bully members of Congress."
At least 545 people have been arrested.
Many have connections to the military. Forty-one are military retirees or veterans. Four are reservists and at least one suspect was active duty.