The January 6 Home the special commission released the long-awaited final report Thursday, ending an 18-month probe into the 2021 violation of the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump.
The damned 845-page report was released three days after a bipartisan committee unanimously voted to refer Trump to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation and possible prosecution over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
Amongst the recommendations is that congressional committees with such powers consider making a “formal review mechanism of whether to bar” Trump from future federal office due to evidence that he violated his constitutional oath to support the U.S. Structure by engaging in revolt.
“Our country has gone too far to permit a defeated president to remodel himself right into a successful tyrant by tearing down our democratic institutions, inciting violence and, as I actually have seen it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” wrote commission chairman Representative Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in the introduction to the report.
The primary of the report’s eight chapters, titled “The Big Lie,” is a reference to Trump’s repeated false claims that he won the election. The chapter noted that Trump had been making efforts even before Election Day to “delegitimize the electoral process,” suggesting that it will be compromised by electoral fraud, particularly in relation to mail-in voting, the use of which has been expanded on account of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The second chapter, titled “I Just Wish to Find 11,780 Votes,” details Trump’s try and overthrow the Electoral College, the body that truly chooses the winner of presidential elections based on candidates’ state-by-state popular vote victories, and parts of the two states.
The title refers to what Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a phone call on January 2, 2021, during which Trump pressured him to take steps that will nullify Biden’s sweeping victory in the state.
The next chapters describe how Trump and his allies sought to present Congress with alternative electoral lists to the actual lists Biden won, their efforts to get the Department of Justice to query the fairness of the election, and persuade then-Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to approve the electoral rolls of several state Electoral Colleges.
The plan to pressure Pence was to throw the decision on who would win the election to the House of Representatives. Though the Democrats held the majority of the seats in that chamber at the time, the Republicans were capable of secure a victory for Trump because they held the majority of the state delegations, each receiving one vote under the system.
The final three chapters give attention to the preparations for the Capitol riot, Trump’s “neglect” of duty by refusing to recall the mob, and the evaluation of the attack on the Capitol.
In its recommendations, the committee on January 6 urged the Senate to pass the Electoral Bills Bill, which the House had already passed. The bill would confirm that the vice chairman has no authority or authority to reject the official list of presidential electors submitted by the governors of their states.
The Panel also concluded that courts and advocate disciplinary bodies that regulate the conduct of lawyers “should proceed to review the conduct of advocates described on this Report.”
“Lawyers mustn’t be free to make use of their legal licenses to undermine the constitutional and statutory strategy of peaceful transfer of power in our government,” the report said.
In a suggestion titled “Violent Extremism,” the report says, “Federal agencies with intelligence and security missions, including the Secret Service, should …
goals to combat the threat of violence posed by all extremist groups, including white nationalist groups and violent anti-government groups, while respecting the First Amendment civil rights and civil liberties of all residents.”
The January 6 panel has already begun sharing its evidence with the Department of Justice, which last month appointed a special counsel to research whether Trump or others unlawfully interfered with Biden’s transfer of power.
Without Trump’s encouragement, the January 6 riots“would never have happened,” panel chairman Thompson told MSNBC. “It could be a standard handover that we do every 4 years when there is a presidential election.”
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but by no means will you bring down the city hall or the courthouse and, God forbid, the United States Capitol,” Thompson said. “It was just something that I feel was beyond the imagination for many Americans … And there are still quite a lot of individuals who cannot fathom why our people would do this.”
The report comes weeks after Trump announced he would seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Each the DOJ and House investigations focus, amongst other things, on the events of January 6, 2021, when a whole bunch of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and compelled lawmakers and Pence to flee the Houses of Congress.
The invasion disrupted a joint session of Congress to verify Biden’s Electoral College victory.
Pence, who chaired that session, resisted pressure from Trump and others to refuse to simply accept the Electoral College lists of several swing states that gave Biden a margin of victory.
The House Committee has conducted greater than 1,000 witness hearings, including with Trump’s White House advisers and lawyers, several of his adult children, and his close allies. The panel also collected a whole bunch of hundreds of documents as a part of the investigation.
Trump spread false claims of election fraud before and after the 2020 election and made quite a few attempts to reverse his loss to Biden in the weeks following Election Day. His public campaign culminated in a rally outside the White House on January 6, 2021, where he called on the crowd to march with him to the Capitol to pressure Congress to annul the election results.
Trump never marched on the Capitol like this, but as a substitute spent hours inside the White House as his supporters attacked law enforcement officials inside and outdoors the Capitol and swarmed the halls of Congress. Trump publicly urged the crowd not to go away the Capitol until late afternoon that day, despite calls from senior White House officials to achieve this.
“You’re the commander-in-chief. The storming of the United States Capitol is underway and nothing is going on? General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the House Committee.
“No connection? Nothing? Zero?” Miley added.
In its Monday vote, the committee referred Trump to the Justice Department for potential indictment on 4 felonies, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and incite revolt.
Individually, a Georgia state grand jury is collecting evidence on Trump’s criminal investigation by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office over his try and get Georgia election officials to undo Biden’s electoral victory in that state.
Trump can also be under criminal investigation by the Department of Justice over the removal of presidency documents, a few of that are top secret, from the White House when he left office.
That is the latest news. Check for updates.