The debate is unfolding as lawmakers prepare to spend much of the summer at home in their districts and attention gradually shifts to next year’s campaign. On the cusp of majorities in both chambers of Congress, Republicans are eager to make sure the races become a referendum on President Joe Biden — not their response to the insurrection.
“I want our midterm message to be about the kinds of issues that the American people are dealing with,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. “It’s jobs and wages and the economy, national security, safe streets, strong borders and those types of issues, and not relitigating the 2020 election.”
That’s why even some of Trump’s most fervent critics in the GOP want to make sure that if a commission is formed, its work is done by the end of 2021 to avoid overlap with an election year, a provision included in the House legislation.
Without a firm deadline, the commission would be “a political event as opposed to a legitimate endeavor to determine how we can avoid attacks of this nature in the future,” said GOP Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who voted to convict Trump in both of his impeachment trials.
The 9/11 commission published its report in July 2004, just months before a presidential election, and included some criticisms of George W. Bush’s administration as the then-president was seeking reelection. But Romney said that was different because the 2001 terror attacks were not so directly linked to domestic politics, unlike the insurrection, which was led by Trump supporters seeking to block certification of Biden’s election victory.