By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is poised to launch a new investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection on Wednesday with expected approval of a 13-person select committee to probe the violent attack.

The panel would be led by Democrats, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointing a chairperson and at least eight of the committee’s members. The resolution up for a vote gives Pelosi a possible say in the appointment of the other five members as well, directing that they will be named “after consultation” with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.

In a memo to all House Republicans late Tuesday, No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise urged his members to vote against the resolution, saying the select panel “is likely to pursue a partisan agenda” in investigating the siege by former President Donald Trump’s supporters. Scalise and McCarthy have so far declined to say whether Republicans will even participate.

Pelosi is moving to form the select committee after Senate Republicans blocked the creation of a separate independent and bipartisan panel that would have been evenly split between the parties and modeled after a commission that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Republicans ready to move on from the insurrection — and Trump’s role in it — argued against that as well, claiming it would be duplicative and partisan.

The speaker has said that it was her preference to have an independent panel lead the inquiry, but that Congress could not wait any longer to begin a deeper look at the insurrection.

The GOP role in the probe, and the appointments to the panel, could help determine whether the committee becomes a bipartisan effort or a tool of further division. Two Senate committees issued a bipartisan report with security recommendations earlier this month, but it did not examine the origins of the siege, leaving many unanswered questions about the events of the day.

McCarthy is facing pressure to take the investigation seriously from police officers who responded to the attack, Democrats and even some of his fellow Republicans. Pelosi has invited representatives of the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and the U.S. Capitol Police to sit in the gallery and watch Wednesday’s vote, according to a person familiar with the plan who wasn’t authorized to discuss it and spoke on condition of anonymity. Dozens of those officers were brutally beaten and suffered injuries as Trump’s supporters pushed past them and broke into the building to interrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

Two of the officers who responded, Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone and Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, met with McCarthy on Friday and asked him to take the House investigation seriously.

Fanone, who has described being dragged down the Capitol steps by rioters who shocked him with a stun gun and beat him, said he asked McCarthy for a commitment not to put “the wrong people” on the panel, a reference to those in the GOP who have downplayed the violence and defended the insurrectionists. Fanone said McCarthy told him he would take his request seriously.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has also publicly pressured McCarthy. “I hope he appoints people who are seen as being credible,” he said Sunday on CNN.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a close Trump ally, said that he doesn’t know what McCarthy is going to do but that it’s possible Republicans will just choose not to be involved.

“I know I’ve got real concerns, I know he does, that this is all just political, and that this is impeachment three against President Trump,” Jordan said.

Trump was twice impeached by the House and twice acquitted by the Senate, the second time for telling his supporters just before the insurrection to “fight like hell” to overturn his defeat to Biden.

Pelosi has not yet said who will lead the panel, but one possibility is House Homeland Security Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. Thompson said Tuesday that it would be an “honor” to serve as chair and that it’s Pelosi’s call if she wants to have a say on the Republican members.

“They had an opportunity to really engage,” Thompson said of Republicans who voted against the bipartisan commission. “And they didn’t. So they can’t now come back and say, ‘Oh, that’s not fair.’”

Many Republicans have expressed concerns about a partisan probe, since majority Democrats are likely to investigate Trump’s role in the siege and the right-wing groups that participated in it. Almost three dozen House Republicans voted last month for the legislation to create an independent commission, and seven Republicans in the Senate have also supported moving forward on that bill. But that was short of the 10 Senate Republicans who would be necessary to pass it.

Many Republicans have made clear that they want to move on from the Jan. 6 attack. But some have gone further, including Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who suggested that video of the rioters looked like a “tourist visit.” Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona insisted that a Trump supporter named Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed that day while trying to break into the House chamber, was “executed.” Others have defended the rioters as they have been charged with federal crimes.

In their meeting with McCarthy, Fanone and Dunn asked the GOP leader to publicly denounce those comments downplaying the violence, as well as the 21 Republicans who recently voted against giving medals of honor to the U.S. Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police to thank them for their service. They said McCarthy, who voted for the measure, told them he would only deal with those members privately.

Seven people died during and after the rioting, including Babbitt and three other Trump supporters who suffered medical emergencies. Two police officers died by suicide in the days that followed, and a third officer, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, collapsed and later died after engaging with the protesters. A medical examiner later determined he died of natural causes.

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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.

By RUSS BYNUM

SURFSIDE, Florida (AP) — The slow work of sifting through the remnants of a collapsed Florida condo building stretched into a sixth day Tuesday, as families desperate for progress endured a wrenching wait for answers.

“We have people waiting and waiting and waiting for news,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters. “We have them coping with the news that they might not have their loved ones come out alive and still hope against hope that they will. They’re learning that some of their loved ones will come out as body parts. This is the kind of information that is just excruciating for everyone.”

The work has been deliberate and treacherous. Thunderstorms rolled through the area Tuesday morning, and debris fell onto the search area overnight from the shattered edge of the part of the building that still stands, forcing rescuers to mark a “don’t go beyond here” line and focus their efforts parts of the debris pile that are farther from the structure, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett told WSVN.

Just two additional bodies were found Monday, raising the count of confirmed dead to 11. That leaves 150 people still unaccounted for in the community of Surfside, just outside Miami.

Authorities are meeting frequently with families to explain what they’re doing and answer questions. They have discussed with families everything from how DNA matches are made to help identify the dead, to how will next of kin be contacted, to going into “extreme detail” about how they are searching the mound, the mayor said.

Armed with that knowledge, she said, families are coming to their own conclusions.

“Some are feeling more hopeful, some less hopeful, because we do not have definitive answers. We give them the facts. We take them to the site,” she said. “They have seen the operation. They understand now how it works, and they are preparing themselves for news, one way or the other.”

Rescuers are using bucket brigades and heavy machinery as they work atop a precarious mound of pulverized concrete, twisted steel and the remnants of dozens of households. The efforts include firefighters, sniffer dogs and search experts using radar and sonar devices.

Authorities said it’s still a search-and-rescue operation, but no one has been found alive since hours after the collapse on Thursday.

The pancake collapse of the building left layer upon layer of intertwined debris, frustrating efforts to reach anyone who may have survived in a pocket of space.

“Every time there’s an action, there’s a reaction,” Miami-Dade Assistant Fire Chief Raide Jadallah said during a news conference Monday. “It’s not an issue of we could just attach a couple of cords to a concrete boulder and lift it and call it a day.” Some of the concrete pieces are smaller, the size of basketballs or baseballs.

From outside a neighboring building on Monday, more than two dozen family members watched teams of searchers excavate the building site. Some held onto each other for support. Others hugged and prayed. Some people took photos.

Authorities insisted they are not losing hope.

Deciding to transition from search-and-rescue work to a recovery operation is agonizing, said Dr. Joseph A. Barbera, a professor at George Washington University. That decision is fraught with considerations, he said, that only those on the ground can make.

Barbera coauthored a study examining disasters where some people survived under rubble for prolonged periods of time. He has also advised teams on where to look for potential survivors and when to conclude “that the probability of continued survival is very, very small.”

“It’s an incredibly difficult decision, and I’ve never had to make that decision,” Barbera said.

The building collapsed just days before a deadline for condo owners to start making steep payments toward more than $9 million in repairs that had been recommended nearly three years earlier, in a report that warned of “major structural damage.”

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Associated Press writer Bobby Caina Calvan in Tallahassee and writers from around the United States contributed to this report.