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Lawmakers Call for 9/11-Style Commission to Investigate Capitol Riots

Lawmakers Call for 9/11-Style Commission to Investigate Capitol Riots

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It’s official: Donald Trump has been acquitted in the Senate regarding his responsibility for the January 6th assault. However, there will still be investigations and hearings to find out, exactly, what happened. And the latest idea from lawmakers is to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol riots.

Democrats, especially those who supported impeachment, are particularly interested in creating this 9/11-style commission, but there is something of a bipartisan consensus to move forward.

For example, Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News on Sunday that he favors “a 9/11-style commission to examine key details that contributed to last month’s deadly riots on Capitol Hill, just a day after former President Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial.”

“Graham said a 9/11-type commission could help ensure a similar event is not repeated in the United States,” Fox News reads. “More investigations into the riot are already planned, with Senate hearings scheduled later this month in the Senate Rules Committee.”

“I’d like to know if the Capitol Police briefed the House’s Sergeant-at-Arms and the Senate’s Sergeant-at-Arms the day before the attack that they needed more troops,” Graham asked during an interview on Fox News Sunday.

Senador Lindsey Graham. (EFE).
A 9/11-style commission supported by both parties, but for different reasons

According to Fox News, the push for a bipartisan commission appears to have the support of Republicans and Democrats, but perhaps for different reasons.

“Republicans have pointed out that evidence could show that Democratic leaders were aware of the threat and did little to prevent the Jan. 6th attack. Democrats, who were not able to condemn Trump, see their window to hold the president accountable for the chaos closing quickly,” according to the media report.

A 9/11-style independent commission, which, to see the light of day would likely require legislation, “would take the investigation a step further, offering a definitive government-backed account of events,” reported Fox.

Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat, commented on ABC‘s This Week “that there is still evidence that needs to come out and that there is a need to ensure the security of the Capitol.” He also wants to “lay bare” Trump’s relationship to the riots.

Two days ago, for the second time, former President Trump was again acquitted of impeachment by the Senate. There was much controversy over whether or not the impeachment of the President was constitutional and, if so, whether it was a move that was in the best interest of the country or just a political move by the Democratic Party.

El American made a special program to analyze what were the real reasons to carry out a second impeachment of Donald Trump:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the lawmakers most supportive of impeachments against Trump, said last month that there will be an “after-action review,” of the impeachment, according to The New York Times. “There will be a commission,” the Democrat said, but whether it is 9/11-style will have to wait.

“Also last month, Hillary Clinton suggested on her podcast that a panel should be formed in the mold of the 2002 team that investigated the 9/11 attacks,” according to Fox News. “She said she would be interested in obtaining Trump’s phone records to see if – during the riots – he was on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

It is unclear what foreign interference had to do with the Capitol riots.

The New York Times itself, meanwhile, compared the 9/11 attacks to the assault on Capitol Hill on January 6th. “The assault on the Capitol resulted in one of the worst injury days for law enforcement in the United States since the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001,” the newspaper editorialized.

An earlier article of El American includes a critique of the Times, “The count of injured police officers, as real and unfortunate as it is, is used by The New York Times in a highly damaging and manipulative narrative, wanting to antagonize police officers with Trump supporters – who supported them during the Black Lives Matter riots last year.”

A 9/11-style commission, which, as it appears has bipartisan support, would not be seeking to equate the two events -at least that is not what has been reported- but to prevent an attack like the one on Capitol Hill from ever taking place again.

Days ago it was revealed that, one of the reasons that prevented good logistics and defense of the Capitol was poor and inconsistent intelligence reporting.

There are still many questions as to how a group of protesters took over the legislative headquarters without major obstacles on their way.

Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón is a journalist at El American specializing in the areas of American politics and media analysis // Emmanuel Alejandro Rondón es periodista de El American especializado en las áreas de política americana y análisis de medios de comunicación.

Contacto: [email protected]

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