(GNB Desk): Democrats with multiple Republican lawmakers are renewing calls for a September 11-style commission over the deadly attack on U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Impeachment managers presented overwhelming evidence linking President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his election loss and his violent rhetoric with the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6.
On Saturday, Seven Republicans joined 50 Democrats in the Senate to hold Trump responsible for inciting the deadly insurrection, led by armed supporters who announced intentions to kill or harm lawmakers including Mike Pence, the former vice president, and Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.
Though the result of the trial was the most bipartisan in history, House managers ultimately did not secure the 67 votes required to convict Trump.
Following Donald Trump’s acquittal in his second, historic impeachment trial on Saturday, some lawmakers have urged Congress to initiate a commission to uncover evidence and create a complete narrative of the riots by a pro-Trump mob on 6 January.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers have issued fresh calls for a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate why government officials and law enforcement failed to stop the attack on the US Capitol in January, following Donald Trump’s acquittal in his impeachment on charges that he incited the insurrection.
The commission would be modeled after a panel created in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, which reviewed what caused the atrocity and laid out recommendations on how to foresee and prevent any future incursions.
“We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again, and I want to make sure that the Capitol footprint can be better defended next time,” said Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator of South Carolina and close Trump ally who voted to acquit the former president on Saturday. “His behavior after the election was over the top,” Graham said of the former president on Fox News Sunday.
Democrat Chris Coons of Delaware agreed. Speaking on ABC’s This Week, he said that a bipartisan commission would “make sure we secure the Capitol going forward and that we lay bare the record of just how responsible and how abjectly violating of his constitutional oath Trump really was”.
Using harrowing video footage from the day, Democratic House prosecutors laid out their case that the former president stoked the attack with violent rhetoric and dangerous insistence on the debunked conspiracy theories suggesting he had won the 2020 presidential election, against all evidence that he had, in fact, lost.
But an independent commission could be another way for both Republicans and Democrats to hold Trump accountable. Other investigations have already been planned, with two Senate committees set to investigate security failures during the riots. In the House, Pelosi has also asked for a review of the Capitol’s security process.
McConnell, who insisted that he voted against impeachment because Trump was no longer in office, after refusing to hold the trial while Trump was still in office, statements on Saturday seemed to punt the responsibility of holding Trump responsible to civil courts: “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”
Pelosi wrote a letter to her Democratic colleagues just before the imeachment vote saying it is “clear that we will need to establish a 9/11-type commission to examine and report upon the facts, causes and security relating to the terrorist mob attack on January 6”. She renewed her support for the commission after Trump’s acquittal.
Updates: 2/15/2021: Pelosi announces a 9/11-type commission to investigate insurrection
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that Congress will take the steps to establish an outside independent, 9/11-type Commission to investigate the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“Now, as always, security is the order of the day: the security of our country, the security of our Capitol which is the temple of our democracy, and the security of our Members,” she wrote in a letter to her Democratic colleagues.
Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré was appointed to issue a report on Capitol security following the riot.
“It is clear from his findings and from the impeachment trial that we must get to the truth of how this happened,” Pelosi’s letter continued. “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 … and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power, including facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response of the United States Capitol Police and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement in the National Capitol Region.'”
A global media for the latest news, entertainment, music fashion, and more.
