05-20-2021, 02:51 PM
![[Image: 106855453-1616002140884-gettyimages-1231...=740&h=416]](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106855453-1616002140884-gettyimages-1231769529-mcconnell925_031721.jpeg?v=1616002200&w=740&h=416)
(CNN)Thirty-five House Republicans chose the truth and American democracy over Donald Trump's personality cult. Now their Senate colleagues face the same battle of conscience over the effort to investigate the Capitol insurrection.
The House of Representatives voted to establish an independent, bipartisan commission on Wednesday, but the bill still has a cliffhanger path ahead as supporters seek votes of 10 Republican senators needed to usher it into law. It remains an open, if perplexing, question if Republican senators will stand in the way of an investigation into an armed attack that sent them fleeing for safety.
The revolt of 35 House Republicans against their leader, California Rep. Kevin McCarthy -- who pushed strongly for the bill's defeat -- represents the strongest rebuke yet of the former President from his own party ranks, far more than the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the Capitol mob scene. The surprising size of the Republican vote for the commission may indicate the politics of the issue are not yet set in stone and could give some Republicans pause as they consider their position on investigating the insurrection.
"People said we would not get more than 20 votes in the House from Republicans," said House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who negotiated the compromise bill with a GOP colleague.
"We got 35, I am optimistic on the Senate side," Thompson said on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront."
John Kasich, the former Republican governor of Ohio, wondered tentatively on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" whether the size of the GOP vote in favor of a commission was the "beginning of the breaking of the dam" against Trump.
"It is a big blow to the leadership that they lost these people and that's going to give momentum over in the Senate to see if they can find the 10 people to say they ought to get to the bottom of it," said Trump's former 2016 presidential primary opponent.
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