The 9/11 Commission almost didn't happen. This film follows the fight to force it into existence, led by the Family Steering Committee, a group of twelve relatives of victims who spent over a year pressuring a reluctant Washington, including the Bush administration, before the first hearing finally opened fourteen months after the attacks. Five of the most vocal Steering Committee members speak on camera, among them three of the women known publicly as the Jersey Girls, recounting how they taught themselves the bureaucracy of intelligence failures and cover-ups well enough to demand real answers. The film builds its case using Paul Thompson's Complete 9/11 Timeline, later published by HarperCollins as The Terror Timeline, pairing it with archival news clips and government press conferences that the filmmakers argue contradict the official account. The result is less a theory of what happened on the day than a record of what the families had to do afterward just to get an investigation opened at all, and what they say still hasn't been explained.