I don’t think Congress does a good job of doing major investigations, although the record isn’t completely conclusive. The Warren Commission, which conducted the first investigation of the assassination of JFK, was so unsatisfactory that the case was reopened again in the 1970’s and the 1990’s. The Iran-Contra investigation was better but inadvertently let Oliver North off the hook by making some of his evidence inadmissible in court. In any case, prosecutor Lawrence Walsh’s investigation was more thorough and mainly thwarted only by stonewalling and the Christmas Eve 1992 pardoning of many of the worst culprits. The 9/11 Commission provided a report that was generally accepted, but it couldn’t overcome–and was not designed to overcome–the Bush administration’s desire to shield the Saudi and Pakistani governments from accountability.

The best congressional investigation in history was Sen. Frank Church of Idaho’s exploration of the crimes and excesses of the intelligence community. The Church Committee, which was formed in 1975 and issued its report in 1976, was a spectacular success. But the concurrent Pike Committee, which was formed in the House to investigate the same issues, was a comparative failure. During the Trump administration, the best investigation was the Senate Intelligence Committee’s work on Russia’s role in the 2016 election, but it did very little original investigative work compared to Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s team, partly to avoid repeating some of the immunity problems that arose in the Iran-Contra investigation. The concurrent House investigation led by Rep. Devin Nunes, was a whitewash and a disgrace.

As you can see, historically, there has been three distinct ways of conducting major investigations. One is the blue ribbon panel used for JFK and 9/11, where well-respected non-politicians or ex-politicians are brought in and given subpoena power. Another is the partisan committee investigation used in the Church Committee, in Iran-Contra (by Sen. John Kerry’s Foreign Relations subcommittee), and for 2016 Russian election interference. The last is the special or independent prosecutor used in Iran-Contra and Russian meddling, but also in Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky.

It sounds like Nancy Pelosi wants to create a bit of a hybrid investigation of the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the Capitol. It’s been widely characterized in the press as a 9/11 Commission-style proposal because it envisions a blue ribbon panel rather than a committee investigation. Yet, the Republicans don’t accept that characterization because the proposal calls for President Joe Biden to appoint three people, while the House and Senate leaders from both parties would each appoint two. In partisan terms, that would give the Democrats a 7-4 advantage rather than the even split on the 9/11 Commission. In this sense, it would be independent but partisan at the same time. Of course, Biden could lessen the impression of partisanship by filling his three positions with people of unknown political affiliation or who are widely respected even in Republican circles. This is what Lyndon Johnson attempted to do by picking the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to head the JFK commission and then putting folks like ex-CIA chief Allen Dulles on the panel. In retrospect, that just wound up leaving both liberals and conservatives suspicious about the outcome.

The problem with investigating January 6 is that we’re not looking at an assassination or foreign actors. We’re not looking only at a former administration. Sitting members of Congress are suspects. Current and former members of the Capitol Police need to be questioned. This argues powerfully for an independent commission. But it’s also only members from one side, the Republicans, who are under suspicion for conspiracy or culpability, and the GOP as a whole may be more interested in protecting itself from fallout than it is in assigning blame and responsibility to some its members. This argues against giving them an equal number of votes which they could use to reject subpoenas or avenues of investigation.

Worse, the Republicans want the power to issue subpoenas even over Democratic objections, which would be defensible if the Republicans were in the majority and were facing obstruction from the Democrats. But it’s already obvious that that want to use this subpoena power to derail the investigation into matters pertaining to the riots that often accompanied protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The idea is that the Democrats only care about one kind of rioting.

This charge, even if true, has nothing to do with figuring out all the facts related to the January 6 insurrection. It’s just an effort to create moral equivalence and distract the public.

Under these circumstances, Pelosi’s proposal makes sense. But, in the end, I think the whole matter should be handled by a special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland. The prosecutor would be charged with issuing a report to Congress telling the full story and making non-political recommendations on Capitol security. All the pending cases for insurrectionists would be consolidated under their purview.

This solves two problems. It takes the matter out of Congress’s hands and avoids the debate over the partisan composition of the commission. It also has a chance of being more satisfactory than the investigations of previous special investigators because the Biden administration will be cooperative in a way that the Poppy Bush, Clinton, and Trump administrations were not. It won’t be possible for people to avoid testifying because subpoenas will be enforced and no pardons will be dangled.

It’s not a perfect solution, but it checks the most boxes and avoids the most obvious problems.