Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said on Monday that the US Congress will move to establish an outside, independent commission to review the “facts and causes” related to the deadly 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency.
Pelosi said in a letter to members of Congress that the commission would be modeled on a similar one convened after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attack on Washington and New York.
Establishing such a body, were it to resemble the commission that reviewed the 9/11 crisis, is expected to require legislation.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers had called for a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate why government officials and law enforcement failed to stop the attack on the Capitol, while both chambers of Congress were engaged in the process of certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.
The calls followed Trump’s acquittal in his second impeachment trial, in which he was accused of inciting the insurrection after months of stoking his supporters with exhortations to try to overturn the election result and an inflammatory rally on the day itself, outside the White House, when he urged angry supporters to march on the Capitol.
Pelosi said on Monday that the panel will also look at the “facts and causes” behind the catastrophe, in which five people died on 6 January, including a police officer, many were injured, and two police officers died by suicide in the days that followed.
