Sen. Roy Blunt, the No. 4 GOP leader in the Senate, said Sunday that a proposed bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot may only serve to delay needed security improvements, underscoring the political quagmire surrounding the plan.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the Missouri Republican downplayed the necessity for creating a new panel modeled after the 9/11 Commission and said “the Congress itself could move forward and make the changes that need to be made.”
“It’s unlikely that the next thing we need to be worried about is going to be exactly like the last thing we needed to worry about,” he said.
Talks to create the commission to look into the attempted insurrection by an organized group of Trump supporters have collapsed over disagreements around the proposed entity’s investigative scope and partisan balance. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who pushed for the commission, is now considering an alternative plan to have House committees investigate.
Blunt, who is retiring from Congress, said Sunday that when it comes to security issues highlighted by the incident, “we know those facts.”
“The Congress itself has the capacity here to move forward,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I’m opposed to a commission, but frankly, I would believe that commission would probably be a reason to wait and not do the things that we know we need to do right now.”