The House Committee’s January 6 final report asserted that Donald Trump was guilty of participating in a “multipart plot” to overturn the legitimate outcome of the 2020 presidential election. and failed to act to stop his supporters from storming the US Capitol, ending an extraordinary election on January 18. -month of investigation into the former president and nearly two-year violent uprising before.
The 845-page report released on Thursday comes after a panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, held 10 hearings and obtained millions of pages of documents.
Witnesses – from many of Trump’s closest aides to law enforcement to some of the rioters themselves – detailed Trump’s actions in the weeks leading up to the uprising and campaign How his widespread pressure to overturn defeat directly affected those who had weathered the riots brutally. police and smashed windows and doors of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“The primary cause of January 6 was a man, former President Donald Trump,” the report reads. “None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”
The uprising seriously threatens democracy and “puts the lives of American lawmakers in jeopardy,” the nine-member panel concluded.
Trump faces multiple investigations
In the opening of the report, outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said the findings should be a “clear appeal to all Americans: defend our democracy with vigilance and vote only for those who have a responsibility to protect our constitution.”
The report’s eight resulting chapters tell much of the same story as the panel hearings this summer – describing many aspects of the remarkable plan Trump and his advisers devised to try to nullify the victory of US President Joe Biden. Lawmakers describe his pressure on states, federal officials, legislators and former vice president Mike Pence to either fool the system or break the law.
In the two months between the election and the uprising, the report said, “President Trump or his inner circle engaged in at least 200 acts that clearly approached, pressured, or condemned the public. publicly or privately, targeting State legislators or State or local election administrators, to reverse the results of State elections.”
The committee said Trump’s repeated, false claims about widespread voter fraud resonated with his supporters, and amplified on social media, based on the distrust of the government he nurtured during his four years in power. And he did little to stop them when they resorted to violence and stormed the Capitol.
The massive, damning report comes as Trump is running for re-election and also faces multiple federal investigations, including investigations into his role in the uprising and the presence of classified documents on his property in Florida.
This week has been particularly difficult for him, as a House of Commons committee is expected to release his tax returns after years of fighting to keep them private. . And Trump has been blamed by Republicans for a worse-than-expected outcome in the November midterm elections, leaving him in the most politically vulnerable position since winning the election. won the 2016 election.
Posting on his social media page, Trump called the report “highly partisan” and falsely claimed that it did not include his statement on January 6 that his supporters should protest. “peacefully and patriotically.” The committee noted that he followed that comment with election misinformation and language accusing the crowd of cheering “fight like hell.”
The report details countless failures by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But it stressed that security failures were not the cause of the uprising.
187 minutes
“The President of the United States inciting a mob to march on the Capitol and obstructing the work of Congress is not a scenario that our intelligence and law enforcement communities envisioned for the country. this,” the committee chair, Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, wrote in a report. separate preface.
The report details Trump’s inaction as his loyalists stormed the building violently. Returning to the White House after his fiery speech, he asked a staff member if they had seen his remarks on television.
“Sir, they cut it off because they were rioting at the Capitol,” the employee said, according to the report.
A White House photographer took a picture of Trump at 1:21 p.m., upon learning of the riot from staff. “At the time, if not earlier, he was made aware of the violent riots at the Capitol,” the report said.
In total, 187 minutes have passed since Trump concluded his speech at the Ellipse and his first attempt to get the rioters to disperse, via a final video message in which he fell in love. He asked his supporters to go home even as he reassured them, “We love you, you’re special.”
During those hours, dozens of employees and associates asked him to make a strong statement. But he didn’t.
The committee cited some of Trump’s most staunch supporters as blaming him for the violence.
“We all look like domestic terrorists now,” longtime aide Hope Hicks texted Julie Radford, who was Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff, then.
Hicks also texted a White House attorney: “I’m so sad. Everything we’ve worked so hard to build has been wiped out.”
The release of the results of the investigation is the final act for House Democrats, who will cede power to Republicans in less than two weeks and have spent most of their time. during their four years in office to investigate Trump. Democrats have impeached Trump twice, the second time a week after the uprising. He was acquitted by the Senate both times. Other Democratic-led investigations have investigated his finances, businesses, foreign relations and family.
On Monday, a panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans formally referred their investigation to the Justice Department, recommended the department to investigate the former president on four crimes, including supporting an uprising. While the criminal referrals have no legal validity, they are the final statement from the commission after a year-and-a-half investigation.
Trump tried to discredit the report, calling members of the committee “thugs and scoundrels” as he continued to falsely dispute his 2020 defeat.
Responding to the jury’s criminal referrals, Trump said: “These people don’t understand that when they go after me, freedom-loving people will rally around me. That gives me strength. “
Interview transcript released
The committee has also begun publishing hundreds of transcripts of its interviews. On Thursday, The panel has released transcripts of two closed-door interviews with former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinsonwho testified in person at one of the televised hearings over the summer and vividly detailed Trump’s efforts to influence election results and his indifference to violence as it happened. go out.
In two interviews, both conducted after her July hearing, she described how many of Trump’s allies, including her attorney, pressured her to do not say too much in committee interviews.
