US Congress to establish 9/11-style commission to investigate Capitol insurrection

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the 9/11-style commission would investigated the causes of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. Photo / AP

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, said Monday (US time) that Congress will establish an independent, September 11-style commission to look into the deadly insurrection that took place at the US 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."

After former President Donald Trump's acquittal at 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.

The Senate's failure to convict Trump, with its 57-43 majority falling 10 votes short of the two-thirds needed for conviction, hardly put to rest the debate about the Republican former president's culpability for the January 6 assault.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, moments after voting to acquit Trump on the charge of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol, said there is still "no question" that Trump was "practically and morally responsible for provoking" the deadly assault.

McConnell said he could not vote to convict Trump because he is "constitutionally not eligible for conviction" since he is no longer president. He added that a conviction would have created a dangerous precedent that would give the Senate power to convict private political rivals and bar them from holding future office.

"There should be a complete investigation about what happened," said Louisiana Senator 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.

McConnell, after voting to acquit, says "there is no question" that Trump is "practically and morally responsible for provoking" Capitol riot. He explains his vote by saying he decided the former president "is constitutionally not eligible for conviction" https://t.co/3HfaYxaxQC pic.twitter.com/KUrelBwiFQ

— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 13, 2021

An independent commission along the lines of the one that investigated the September 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 Democratic Senator Chris Coons, 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 criticising him at the same time.

A close Trump ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, voted for acquittal but acknowledged that Trump had some culpability for 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 behaviour 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."