US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi BBC
US House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi says Congress will establish an "outside, independent"
commission to investigate the 6 January attack on the US Capitol by supporters
of Donald Trump. In a letter to lawmakers, she said the
commission would be modelled on the inquiry into the 11 September 2001 attacks
on New York and the Pentagon. "We must get to the truth of how this
happened," she said. Former President Trump was acquitted by the
Senate of inciting the violence.
But Democrats and some Republicans have backed
an independent investigation into the riots, which left five people dead.
Mrs Pelosi said that retired US Army Lt Gen Russel Honoré had, over the past few weeks, been assessing the security needs of the Capitol in light of the attack.
She also said that, based on Lt Gen Honoré's initial findings, Congress needed to allocate additional funding to "provide for the safety of members and the security of the Capitol".
House Republican Adam Kinzinger, who called for Mr Trump's removal after the riots, was condemned by 11 members of his family in a handwritten letter, in which they said he was in cahoots with "the devil's army".
Mr Trump survived his second impeachment trial on Saturday, after Democrat prosecutors failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to convict him. He is the only president to have faced the process twice.
The senior Republican in Congress, Senator Mitch McConnell, had voted against conviction on constitutional grounds, but after the vote declared Mr Trump "responsible" for the assault on the Capitol.
Other Republicans have also expressed support for an independent inquiry into the riots, including a close ally of Mr Trump, Senator Lindsay Graham. He told Fox News Sunday that the former president bore some culpability.
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