After foreign terrorists hijacked jetliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Congress created a commission to find out who and what was behind the unprecedented assault on American power, and why our government failed to protect us from this catastrophic failure of national security.
Now there is a push to establish a commission to confront the threat of domestic terrorism that would have the same subpoena power and ability to get documents and interview key people in the government, including President Trump and his circle, as the 9/11 commission had in accessing the then Bush administration.
The findings of the 9/11 commission were broadly accepted by the public. Its report became a bestseller and its chapter-by-chapter journey through the origins of the terrorist group behind the attack to what the Bush administration knew and when they knew it is now a college textbook.