Pelosi’s push for 9/11-style Capitol riot commission stalls in political quicksand

Pelosi is now eyeing a Plan B: tapping three House committees, run by Democrats, to do their own probe of how a violent, pro-Trump mob managed to overwhelm police and terrorize legislators.

What seemed like a no-brainer at the time — a 9/11-Commission-style review of the origins of the mob, the white nationalists who joined it and the security failures that allowed it to briefly occupy the Capitol — has instead become the latest theater for dysfunction on Capitol Hill as the two parties squabble over the panel’s scope and partisan balance. The commission’s prospects have also dimmed thanks to a relatively well-functioning Senate inquiry that’s already helped provide the sort of answers an independent entity might take months to produce.

“I like the idea of a 9/11 Commission, but we also want to have something intermediary here,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who chairs the Rules Committee, one of two Senate panels probing the events of Jan. 6. “As I look at our officers on the front lines, they can’t wait a year for some suggestions about what we can do better.”