From News Nation:
“Pelosi says
independent commission will examine Capitol riot”
House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi says Congress will establish an independent, Sept. 11-style commission
to look into the deadly insurrection that took place at the U.S. Capitol. Pelosi
said the commission will “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.” In a letter to Democratic colleagues, Pelosi said the House
will also put forth supplemental spending to boost security at the Capitol. After
former President Donald Trump was acquitted in his second Senate impeachment
trial, bipartisan support appeared to be growing for an independent commission
to examine the deadly insurrection.
Investigations
into the riot were already planned, with Senate hearings scheduled later this
month in the Senate Rules Committee. Pelosi, D-Calif., asked retired Army Lt.
Gen. Russel Honoré to lead an immediate review of the Capitol’s security
process .In her letter Monday, Pelosi said, “It is clear from his findings and
from the impeachment trial that we must get to the truth of how this happened.”
She added, “As we prepare for the Commission, it is also clear from General
Honoré’s interim reporting that we must put forth a supplemental appropriation
to provide for the safety of Members and the security of the Capitol.”
Lawmakers from
both parties, speaking on Sunday’s news shows, signaled that even more
inquiries were likely. The Senate verdict Saturday, with its 57-43 majority
falling 10 votes short of the two-thirds needed to convict Trump, hardly put to
rest the debate about the Republican former president’s culpability for the
Jan. 6 assault. “There should be a complete investigation about what happened,”
said Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict
Trump. “What was known, who knew it and when they knew, all that, because that
builds the basis so this never happens again.” Cassidy said he was “attempting
to hold President Trump accountable,” and added that as Americans hear all the
facts, “more folks will move to where I was.” He was censured by his state’s
party after the vote.
An independent
commission along the lines of the one that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks
would probably require legislation to create. That would elevate the
investigation a step higher, offering a definitive government-backed accounting
of events. Still, such a panel would pose risks of sharpening partisan
divisions or overshadowing President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda. “There’s
still more evidence that the American people need and deserve to hear and a
9/11 commission is a way to make sure that we secure the Capitol going
forward,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a Biden ally. “And that we lay bare
the record of just how responsible and how abjectly violating of his
constitutional oath President Trump really was.” House prosecutors who argued
for Trump’s conviction of inciting the riot said Sunday they had proved their
case. They also railed against the Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell,
and others who they said were “trying to have it both ways” in finding the
former president not guilty but criticizing him at the same time. A close Trump
ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., voted for acquittal. He said on “Fox News
Sunday” he was in favor of a 9/11 style commission to examine the details that
led up to the siege at the Capitol that killed five people, including a police
officer, and disrupted lawmakers’ certification of Biden’s White House victory.
Graham said he looked forward to campaigning with Trump in the 2022 election,
when Republicans hope to regain the congressional majority. “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 acquitted
Trump of a charge of “incitement of insurrection” after House prosecutors laid
out a case that he was an “inciter in chief” who unleashed a mob by stoking a
months long campaign of spreading debunked conspiracy theories and false
violent rhetoric that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Trump’s lawyers
countered that Trump’s words were not intended to incite the violence and that
impeachment was nothing but a “witch hunt” designed to prevent him from serving
in office again. The conviction tally was the most bipartisan in American
history but left Trump to declare victory and signal a political revival while
a bitterly divided GOP bickered over its direction and his place in the party. The
Republicans who joined Cassidy in voting to convict were Sens. Richard Burr of
North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney
of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. “It’s frustrating,
but the founders knew what they were doing and so we live with the system that
we have,” Democratic Del. Stacey Plaskett, a House prosecutor who represents
the Virgin Islands, said of the verdict, describing it as “heartbreaking.” She
added: “But, listen, we didn’t need more witnesses. We needed more senators
with spines.” McConnell told Republican senators shortly before the vote that
he would vote to acquit Trump. In a blistering speech after the vote, the
Kentucky Republican said the president was “practically and morally responsible
for provoking the events of that day” but that the Senate’s hands were tied to
do anything about it because Trump was out of office. The Senate, in an earlier
vote, had deemed the trial constitutional. “It was powerful to hear the 57
guilties and then it was puzzling to hear and see Mitch McConnell stand and say
‘not guilty’ and then, minutes later, stand again and say he was guilty of
everything,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa. “History will remember that
statement of speaking out of two sides of his mouth,” she said. Dean also
backed the idea of an impartial investigative commission “not guided by
politics but filled with people who would stand up to the courage of their
conviction.”
^ There does
need to be an independent review because I’m sure there is more to the story
than we know right now. ^
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