“The fact that we are now even more polarized, toxic and partisan than we were when we created the 9/11 commission is true,” said Tim Roemer, who served as one of the five Democratic members of the panel.
The idea that “we can make people work together, meet goals and make recommendations to heal the country and strengthen it is even more important in many ways,” added Roemer, “given the depth of the divide and the poisonous toxicity that exists today. ”
Roemer is one of several veterans of the 9/11 Commission in contact with the speaker as she adapts the framework for last month’s insurrection. Former New Jersey governor Tom Kean, a Republican nominated by George W. Bush to chair the commission, along with co-chairman Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman, also advise her.
Pelosi described the future proposal as a way to “get to the truth” about what happened on January 6, and she is talking to other Democrats about the proposal before seeking the Republican Party’s opinion, according to several Democratic aides. As she led the Democrats to a second impeachment of Trump like lightning last month, calling for a vote a week after the insurrection, Pelosi insisted that the proposed commission “has nothing to do with President Trump”.
“It’s about security. How did it happen? Where do we go from here?” she told reporters on Friday. Among the issues that the commission will investigate, Pelosi added, are “white supremacy”, anti-Semitism and other factors identified as drivers of domestic extremism of the kind shown in the insurrection.
The commission’s final legislation should closely mirror the structure of the 9/11 Commission – a 10-member, bipartisan panel with ample latitude and independence to continue its investigation. But even as Democrats insist that they want the legislation to have strong bipartisan support, several Republicans complained in particular that they were not even included in the drafting process.
Some Republican Party members have already endorsed the idea of a 9/11-style commission to independently investigate the violent uprising that broke out when Congress met to certify President Joe Biden’s victory in November. Representative Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) Proposed his own legislation on the matter together with representatives John Katko (RN.Y.) and James Comer (R-Ky.). A spokesman for Davis said he has not yet seen what Pelosi plans to present.
Democrats say it is because they want to reach a final agreement with each other before taking the proposal to Republican leaders. Pelosi is still working with his committee chairmen and Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer to work out the final details.
Schumer “100 percent” supports an independent commission to investigate the events surrounding the January 6 uprising “and expects it to be approved by both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support,” spokesman Justin Goodman confirmed in a statement in the Tuesday.
Members of the 9/11 Commission urged Democrats to carefully define the scope of their proposed January 6 panel. The legislation that establishes its mission, they said, should exclude irrelevant issues, but focus on painting the broadest possible picture of who and what fueled the insurrection, including funding its participants, and who screwed up the security response.
“During the course of [the 9/11] investigation, we asked the team over and over again to tell us what the mandate was, “said Hamilton.” The mandate governs the process and must be worked out very carefully “.
The commission must also have subpoena power and adequate resources, they say. Kean also told POLITICO that the 9/11 Commission has become something of a clearinghouse to unmask conspiracy theories about the event – suggesting that any 1/6 commission could fulfill a similar purpose.
“This is a time when rumors spread, when falsehoods abound,” he said. “It is difficult for people to understand what is true and what is not true.”
But the most important decision of all cannot be included in the legislative text: the appointment of commissioners, whose selection is likely to be split between the White House and Congressional leadership. White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated support for the establishment of a commission on Tuesday and promised that the Biden government would help in the effort if it passed.
Nominees and officials for any insurrection commission must have credibility on both sides of the corridor, members of the 9/11 Commission said, warning that anything less would risk condemning the commission to failure. The 9/11 panel nominees, chosen by then President Bush and also by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, hired a team to do their daily work.
“Anyone who had participated in the recent political campaigns” has been ruled out, Kean said of the recruitment process. “I think we received 10 recommendations from a lawyer and, in tracking them, everyone was very supportive. So, we chose the eleventh. “
The commissioners faced skeptics at the time, and they quickly remembered a very intense partisanship at that time, despite the rosy memories of an earlier era. The disputed Bush-Gore election in 2000 was still recent, conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks proliferated and party mistrust – perhaps a more peculiar version of it – was increasing on Capitol Hill.
“The talkative class in Washington condemned the 9/11 Commission to failure, predicting that we would end up in a party fight for food,” said attorney Richard Ben-Veniste, another 9/11 Democrat from the commission. “The reality is that (…) the selected individuals were able to put aside their party impulses for the purpose of a greater good”.
This is one of the reasons why ex-commissioners said it is important that any new effort should include voices from outside Washington that have a history that would lend themselves to cooperation – be they ex-governors, attorney generals or mayors – as well as ex-legislators. .
Kean, who spent his youth entering and leaving the Capitol as the son and grandson of members of Congress, said it was still impossible to compare the bloodshed and shock of 9/11 with 6 January. But, he added, it was “devastating” in a different way to see the symbol of American democracy tainted by violent upheavals.
“You walk into that building with awe and a sense of awe,” said Kean of the Capitol. “It was a psychological shock for the country.”
Former members of the 9/11 Commission also recalled that the external activism of the 9/11 victims’ families was an important force, both in forming the commission itself and in ensuring that it remained on track. Roemer said they helped force the legislation that creates the commission – a proposal by him and the late Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) At the time – through Congress, despite some initial concerns by the Bush administration about what an investigation might to result.
A similar external effort to create an insurrection commission from ideologically diverse groups will be crucial to creating “moral persuasion” this time too, said Roemer.
Trump’s presence is just one of many challenges that can hinder any efforts to generate a bipartisan agreement on a commission. Another is persistent mistrust among lawmakers themselves: Democrats accused some of their Republican colleagues of leading suspicious Capitol trips on January 5, raising the spectrum of domestic aid for protesters. Pelosi raised magnetometers in response to concerns that some members were entering the House armed.
Republicans, meanwhile, have begun to suggest that Pelosi herself has questions to answer about decisions about Capitol security on the eve of the riots. Davis and Comer, accompanied by the Reps. Devin Nunes of California and Jim Jordan of Ohio, said they want Pelosi to preserve his own office’s records on the matter.
But overlapping everything is Trump’s uncertain political future. The ex-president delighted with the absolution of the impeachment trial – although the 57 senators voting to convict him were the most bipartisan impeachment trial in the history of the United States – and promised to mount a political comeback. And Trump has shown himself dedicated to preventing investigations into his conduct.
Trump’s advisers did not respond to a request for comment on the panel.
Heather Caygle, Marianne Levine and Meridith McGraw contributed to this report.