Pelosi Says “Next Step” Is a “9/11-Type Commission” to Investigate Capitol Riot

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has thrown the weight of her office behind the move to launch an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In a letter to House Democrats on Monday, Pelosi said Congress must “get to the truth” of what led to the insurrection after senators voted to acquit former President Donald Trump.

“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 wrote. This is not the first time Pelosi has expressed support for this type of commission. But it is the first time she has thrown her weight behind the idea after Trump’s acquittal, making it sound like a done deal. Pelosi also wrote Monday that Democrats “must put forth a supplemental appropriation to provide for the safety of Members and the security of the Capitol.”

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff told Politico that the commission was needed to figure out exactly what the cause of the riot was and go beyond Trump’s role. Schiff said that it’s important to also understand who the extremists were who decided to head to Washington and whether Trump’s administration stopped focusing on the security threat posed by white nationalism in order to focus on left-wing extremists.

After Trump’s acquittal, several lawmakers came forward to say that Congress needed to set up an independent commission to investigate the events of Jan. 6 that would work in much the same way to the one that was launched after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, for example, said Sunday that “there’s still more evidence that the American people need and deserve to hear.” And it isn’t just Democrats who are calling for the investigation. Sen. Lindsey Graham also said the commission was necessary “to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again.”

The idea of the commission got a boost late last week when Tom Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, and Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic House member from Indiana, also expressed support for the commission. Kean and Hamilton led the commission that investigated the 2001 attacks over a period of two years.

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