After the House voted to impeach Trump after the attack in the capitol, the Senate choose to acquit him on a 57-43 vote. The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that the House will be establishing an independent commission to investigate what led to the mob on January 6th. The commission that will be established will be similar to the one that studied the 9/11 attacks.
After the findings from Retired Army Gen. Russel Honoré and the impeachment trial, many want to get to the truth of how this happened. Supporters of the commission say that it will have a broader authority than the committees for Trump's testimony and will also not be under the time constraints of the investigations. Both parties have endorsed the idea for an independent investigation that would be modeled after the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which was established in 2002 and published a report on how to guard against future attacks.
For Democrats, the commission will help aid in holding the Trump accountable after the impeachment trial failed to convict him with enticing his supporters with his speech. They also want the commission to find out what happened and make sure that it does not happen again.
2 comments:
To see bipartisan support on this commission is something surprising. There were hotly debated and widely converging perspectives between democrats and republicans whether Trump directly incited the capitol riot of January 6th during the impeachment hearings. Thus, it comes as a surprise for myself how both parties have endorsed the idea of the commission since the commission will help aid in holding Trump accountable for the January 6th riots. As we I have recently learned through AP Gov, Commissions within congress are very important aspects of our legislative branches and thus, I hope that this commission, with it’s bipartisan support, is able to find significant evidence to not only hold those accountable but also to prevent such an attack as the capitol riot to occur again. In addition, it is also reassuring that the capitol riot has received the same level of attention as 9/11 and were not disregarded as some meaningless event. This coup attempt was an attack on democracy and as such it should be treated no less than any other grave event that has plagued American soil and threatens our security and democracy.
While bipartisan support for a Congressional action is definitely a rarer and rarer occurrence, I am not as surprised as Laurent is about the establishment of this commission/panel. Because every member of the House was directly impacted and felt the terror of the January 6th riot, it does not surprise me that all the House members would be motivated to ensure a threat to their safety does not occur again. We can assume that all Representatives would feel comforted by a panel investigating, as Amy put it, "what happened and" making "sure that it does not happen again."
While I definitely think a commission/panel focused on investigating the events of January 6th won't hurt in the efforts to hold leaders, such as Trump, accountable for the attack on the Capitol, I wonder what the actual effect of this examination will be. Will this Commission actually impose any real restrictions or strikes on the leaders who encouraged the siege? Or is it just a way for Congress to fact check and clarify information related to events? What will be the impact of this commission?
I do think Laurent brings up a good point by mentioning how reassuring it is that "the capitol riot has received the same level of attention as 9/11 and were not disregarded as some meaningless event." If Congress is treating January 6th with the same seriousness as the nation did 9/11, I am hopeful that this commission will have a positive outcome.
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