House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls out Sen. Mitch McConnell for his reasoning behind why he voted not guilty in former President Trump’s second impeachment hearing: CNN video screen shot

By Glynn Wilson –

An independent commission will be established by Congress to investigate the Capitol insurrection on January 6 and the interference with the peaceful transfer power, according to a letter sent out Monday to Democrats in the House and posted online by House Speaker Nanci Pelosi.

“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,” Pelosi wrote in the letter.

She had already asked retired Gen. Russel L. Honoré to examine security on Capitol Hill.

“For the past few weeks, General Honoré has been assessing our security needs by reviewing what happened on January 6 and how we must ensure that it does not happen again. He has been working with Committees of Jurisdiction and will continue to make proposals,” Pelosi said.

“It is clear from his findings and from the impeachment trial that we must get to the truth of how this happened. To protect our security,” she said, “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’.”

Pelosi was responding to calls from others in Washington and around the country on the need for a bipartisan, independent investigation into the federal law enforcement and Trump administrative failures and perhaps collusion that led to the first breach of the Capitol complex in a couple of centuries. The Senate may have acquitted former President Donald J. Trump in his impeachment trial on a charge of inciting the rioters in a mostly party line vote. But for some members of Congress and unsatisfied people around the country, a commission may offer one of the last major opportunities to hold Trump accountable, at least for the historical record.

“There’s still more evidence that the American people need and deserve to hear,” Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said over the weekend on ABC’s “This Week,” adding that a commission would “make sure that we secure the Capitol going forward and that we lay bare the record of just how responsible” Trump was for the attack.

Establishing a commission would require legislation, like the 9/11 Commission, which conducted on a 20-month investigation after President George W. Bush signed a law mandating the panel investigate what caused the Sept. 11 attacks and how to prevent future attacks. The commission ultimately offered recommendations that led to the reshaping of congressional oversight and intelligence coordination.

While it is not clear if the investigation will include checking reports of collusion on the part of some racist Capitol Police officers and Republican members of Congress, that should be included in the report, along with the existence of an explicit or implicit “stand down” order by the commander-in-chief to the acting Secretary of Defense under Trump, as well as the Sergeants at Arms for the House and Senate, who resigned at Pelosi’s demand after the insurrection, along with the Capitol Police Chief.

A group of House Republicans wrote to Pelosi on Monday complaining that she had tapped General Honoré without input from their party and demanded that she answer questions about what she knew and what directions she gave ahead of the Jan. 6 attack, according to reporting from The New York Times and other news outlets. Some Republicans also objected to Pelosi’s decision to install magnetometers outside the House chamber in response to concern about some lawmakers bringing firearms onto the House floor.

“It is easy to understand why we and our Senate counterparts remain skeptical that any of his final recommendations will be independent and without influence from you,” wrote the Republicans, including Representative Rodney Davis of Illinois, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, and Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee.

Shaken by the siege on Jan. 6, which left many traumatized after hiding for their lives in their offices and in the House chamber, lawmakers have also asked to use campaign funds to pay for additional security in their districts, according to the Times. An emergency funding bill would most likely help fund security for lawmakers in the districts as well as at the Capitol, which remains surrounded by fencing and patrolled by National Guard troops.