Pelosi says 9/11-style commission on Capitol insurrection should have subpoena power

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says that the 9/11-style commission that will investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill should have subpoena power. 

“There’s really strong support in the country for us to seek the truth, find the truth, but also understand how we have to protect the American people from what might be out there in terms of domestic terrorism and the rest,” Pelosi said at her Thursday press conference, an apparent reference to the far-right rioters. 

“You have to have subpoena power,” she responded when asked if it should have the ability to demand testimony.

Pelosi first announced Monday that a commission will probe the events of Jan. 6, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress’s certification of the 2020 Electoral College vote.

The panel will be based on the one that investigated the origins of and security failures surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Speaker said Monday in a “Dear Colleague” letter that the impeachment trial and a review by Ret. Gen. Russel Honoré into how to prevent another riot make it “clear” that “we must get to the truth of how this happened.” 

Pelosi said the commission will “investigate and report on the facts and causes relating to the January 6, 2021 domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex” as well as “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.” 

There is bipartisan support for a 9/11-style commission into the insurrection, which led to the deaths of several people, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. Two other police officers who responded to the breach died by suicide in the days after.

Several security leaders, including the Capitol Police chief, House sergeant-at-arms and Senate sergeant-at-arms, stepped down from their positions over criticism that law enforcement was woefully underprepared for the mob despite intelligence indicating that it could become violent.