House Democrat Schiff wants 9/11 style commission on U.S. coronavirus response, 'what went wrong'

California Rep. Adam Schiff – who led House Democrats in their Russia probe and Trump impeachment trial – is now calling for a congressional commission to learn “what went wrong” in the United States’ response to the coronavirus. 

“After Pearl Harbor and 9/11, we looked at what went wrong to learn from our mistakes. Once we've recovered, we need a nonpartisan commission to review our response and how we can better prepare for the next pandemic,” tweeted Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence committee, the chamber’s top investigative panel.

Schiff is drafting legislation in the Democrat-controlled chamber to form the commission. However, if passed, hearings likely wouldn’t begin until after the House addresses another possible round of emergency coronavirus spending and the spread of the virus is under control.  

Schiff told the Washington Post: “We will need to delay the work of the commission until the crisis has abated to ensure that it does not interfere with the agencies that are leading the response. But that should not prevent us from beginning to identify where we got it wrong and how we can be prepared for the next pandemic.”

Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, suggested Thursday that he agreed with the idea of a congressional review but that Schiff might not like the findings, because they will include what his committee has done. 

"I think there's going to actually be a look back here that I'm not sure Adam Schiff wants to talk about, and that is China’s role in this and the fact that, as Intelligence committee chairman, he was so wrapped up in impeachment during when all this hit that I'm not sure there was a slow response on both sides because no one was looking at this," Collins said Thursday morning on the Fox News Channel.