Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 committee hearings took off with a bang on Tuesday, and make no mistake, though the testimony given by police was graphic and shocking, it was still merely political theater designed to discredit President Trump and others who have downplayed the violence associated with the January 6 protests.

Four police officers who defended the Capitol from the so-called “pro-Trump” mob that invaded it on January 6 criticized the former president and Republicans who are loyal to him for allegedly inspiring and then downplaying the attack.

They asked members of the House select committee investigating the events of that day to get to the bottom of their culpability.

“You guys are the only ones we’ve got to deal with crimes that occur above us,” Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Officer Daniel Hodges said. “I need you guys to address if anyone in power had a role in this. If anyone in power coordinated or aided abetted or tried to downplay, tried to prevent the investigation of this terrorist attack.”

The officers made the comments before a panel with no hostile questioners. Republicans pulled all of their appointees to the committee after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blocked two of them for being too closely aligned with Trump. Because of action such as that by Pelosi, House Republican leaders have called House Speaker’s January 6 committee a “sham” that would only produce a “failed report.”

In a press conference ahead of Tuesday’s opening hearings in Washington, Republicans insisted Pelosi cherry-picked members for the committee who would stick to her talking points and predetermined narrative for the events of January 6.

“We now have a committee that all of America wants to know the answers to,” explained House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). “Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi will only pick on people unto the committee that will ask the questions she wants asked. That becomes a failed committee and a failed report, a sham that no one can believe.”

McCarthy went on to say if lawmakers wanted the true answers, they should not be afraid of the questions that would be asked. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) echoed those sentiments.

“Speaker Pelosi said that she doesn’t want those questions to be asked, so she kicked them off the committee,” he stated. “She took an unprecedented step of refusing to allow members to be appointed by the minority leader to a select committee. That never before happened in the history of Congress.”

Scalise reiterated Democrats were not aiming at the truth but instead conspiring to cover up the facts with a narrative prewritten by Pelosi.

Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said it was only after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) began to raise questions about Pelosi’s negligent and “potentially nefarious” response to Intelligence reports that she refused to seat them on the committee.

She went on to say, “it is a fact that the U.S. Capitol police raised concerns, and rather than providing them with the support and resources that they needed, and they deserved, she prioritized her partisan political optics over their safety.”

Representative Banks called on the chairman of the committee to bring before the panel the head of the Capitol Police Union, who has repeatedly said both publicly and privately that officers weren’t prepared, despite the intelligence Pelosi was given in December.

“They were not prepared for what happened on January 6 in spite of intelligence reports that date back three weeks before that day,” he asserted. “They weren’t equipped on January 6 with the proper equipment that they needed to handle what happened that day, and they weren’t trained for what was going to happen that day.”

Jim Jordan, who, like Banks was denied a chair on the committee, questioned why Pelosi ordered the sergeant of arms of the National Guard to remain off Capitol grounds on January 6.

“Pelosi’s office had previously impressed upon the Sergeant of Arms Paul Irving that the National Guard was to remain off Capitol grounds,” he discussed. “Irving told House administration discussions centered around the quote ‘optics.’”