Congress will form a 9/11-style commission to “get to the truth” of how far-right attackers were able to storm the U.S. Capitol last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Monday, ensuring continued scrutiny over former President Donald Trump’s role in the deadly riot despite his impeachment trial acquittal.
In a letter to Democratic colleagues, Pelosi, D-Calif., said the establishment of an independent commission is warranted because many questions remain about the Jan. 6 tragedy despite Trump’s Senate impeachment trial and a security review of the Capitol attack undertaken by retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré.
“It is clear from his findings and from the impeachment trial that we must get to the truth of how this happened,” Pelosi wrote. “To protect our security, our security, our security, our next step will be to establish an outside, independent 9/11-type commission to ‘investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex.’”
Pelosi’s announcement came in response to bipartisan calls for a Capitol attack commission, similar to the one Congress launched in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“There should be a complete investigation about what happened,” said Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump during his trial Saturday. “What was known, who knew it and when they knew, all that, because that builds the basis so this never happens again.”
Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat and close ally of President Joe Biden, agreed that Americans still don’t know the whole truth about what happened, who is responsible and how it could have been prevented.
“There’s still more evidence that the American people need and deserve to hear,” Coons said. “And that we lay bare the record of just how responsible and how abjectly violating of his constitutional oath President Trump really was.”
Investigations into the riot were already planned, with Senate hearings scheduled later this month in the Senate Rules Committee.
A 9/11-style commission will likely require legislation from Congress.
Trump loyalists in Congress will likely resist the creation of a commission. Some on the right have already floated the idea that such a commission should also look at last summer’s racial justice protests.
Cassidy was quickly censured by his state’s Republican Party for voting to convict Trump but still believes more Republicans would support his position if they knew all the facts about the riots and Trump’s role in inciting the attack.
“More folks will move to where I was,” Cassidy said.
Even Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, an ardent support of Trump who voted for acquittal, acknowledged that the ex-president’s words and actions contributed to the violent insurrection that killed five people, including a police officer, and disrupted lawmakers’ certification of Biden’s White House victory.
“His behavior after the election was over the top,” Graham said. “We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again.”
The Senate voted 57-43 to convict Trump, a tally that fell 10 votes short of the two-thirds needed to convict.
But the support of seven Republicans — and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s blistering rebuke of Trump after the acquittal vote — suggests there’s enough bipartisan appetite for an inquiry that could likely shed more light on Trump’s actions before, during and after the Jan. 6 attack.
