House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Republicans are butting heads over the number of members from each party that will ma...
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Republicans are butting heads over the number of members from each party that will make up the proposed 9/11-style commission tasked with investigating the January 6 insurrection.
Politico reported Monday that Republicans are demanding an equal number of seats on the commission, despite being in the minority in both chambers.
Pelosi has floated Democrats getting to pick seven members, while Republicans would choose four.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is butting heads with Republicans over the partisan make-up of a proposed 9/11-style commission that will probe the January 6 insurrection, pushing for more Democratic members
While the 9/11 Commission had five Republicans and five Democrats, Politico reported that Pelosi said there should be seven Democrats and four Republicans probing the insurrection (pictured) that took place on January 6
Pelosi proposed that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (left) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (right) would each get to pick two members, while she and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would each pick two as well
Democrats would get an edge because Democratic President Joe Biden (pictured) would pick three members of the committee, including the chair, who would have subpoena power as part of the investigation
Under the Democratic proposal, reported by Politico, Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell would each choose two members of the commission.
Democratic President Joe Biden would pick three additional members, including the commission's chair, who would have subpoena power.
The panel would conclude its work by the end of 2021 and dissolve 60 days later.
A senior Democratic aide told Politico that negotiations are ongoing and nothing is final.
Pelosi's spokesman Drew Hammill pushed back on the assertion that Pelosi is trying to create a 'partisan' commission.
'Nobody wants this to be partisan, that's why the effort here is to follow what was done with the 9/11 Commission,' Hammill told Newsmax. 'And that means that the commission leaders are appointed by the four top Congressional leaders and the president.'
The 9/11 Commission reviewed the intelligence failures that led to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
The commission was made up of five Democrats and five Republicans, with the chair, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, appointed by then President George W. Bush and the vice chair, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, appointed by Democratic leaders in Congress.
Former members of the 9/11 Commission, including Kean and Hamilton, said the fully bipartisan set-up gave it credibility and allowed it to be steered in a non-partisan way.
Republicans are also pressuring Democrats not to articulate specific avenues of inquiry, which might also give the 1/6 commission a partisan tilt.
The commission is coming together as the Senate held its first hearing on the January 6 insurrection Tuesday.
Members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Committee on Rules and Administration had the former Capitol Police chief, the former Senate and House sergeants at arms and the acting head of D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department testify.
Additionally, Capitol Police Captain Carneysha Mendoza talked of her harrowing experience fighting off protesters in the Capitol Rotunda.
'I received chemical burns to my face that still have not healed to this day,' she said, testifying that some of the rioters had brought 'military-grade' CS gas, which they used inside the Capitol on police.
On Monday, Biden's pick for attorney general, Judge Merrick Garland, said he would make prosecuting those responsible for the insurrection a top priority.
So far, prosecutors have charged more than 200 people for being involved in the assualt.
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