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The House of Representatives committee’s final report on the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, concluded that Donald Trump participated in a “multi-party conspiracy” to overturn the legal results of the 2020 presidential election and notes that he did not acted to prevent the assault.
The deceased has a first and last name. The conclusive report on the Capitol storming detailed that former President Donald Trump committed “premeditated” actions in the weeks leading up to the attack and that efforts to overturn his election loss prompted his supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6. of 2021.
The central cause was “one man,” the report says: Trump. The 814-page document was released late Thursday after the panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, held 10 hearings and accessed more than a million documents.
Witnesses, including Trump’s closest aides, law enforcement and even some of the agitators themselves, detailed that the then president of the United States was the gasoline that fueled the fire. “None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him,” the report cites.
The insurrection seriously threatened democracy and “endangered the lives of US lawmakers,” the nine-member bipartisan panel concluded, offering yet the most conclusive account of a dark chapter in modern US history.
The investigation is not only a compendium of the most dramatic moments of the testimony that spanned 18 months of hearings, but it is also presented as a document destined to be preserved for future generations.
The foreword, written by outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, says the conclusions should be a “clarion call to all Americans: keep a close eye on our democracy and give our vote only to those who uphold our Constitution.” .
“Donald Trump lit that fire”
The report’s eight chapters describe the many facets of the plan that Trump and his advisers devised to try to undo President Joe Biden’s victory. The lawmakers describe the former president’s pressure on states, federal officials, lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to break the law.
“President Trump or his inner circle engaged in at least 200 apparent acts of public or private disclosure, pressure, or condemnation, directed at state legislators or state or local election administrators, to overturn state election results,” the committee states.
Trump’s repeated false claims about widespread voter fraud resonated with his supporters, the committee said, and were amplified on social media, tapping into mistrust in the government he had fostered during his four years in office.
It also details various failures by law enforcement and intelligence services, noting that many of the agitators were armed and had openly planned violence on social media. “The failure to share information and act accordingly endangered the lives of the police officers defending the Capitol and everyone within it,” the report states.
The commission stresses that security lapses are not the main cause of the insurrection. “The President of the United States inciting a mob to march on the Capitol and impede the work of Congress is not a scenario our intelligence and law enforcement communities envisioned for this country,” Congressman Bennie Gordon Thompson wrote.
“Donald Trump lit that fire,” Thompson said. The report details Trump’s inaction as his loyalists stormed the building, saying that during the time he watched the violence on television he did nothing to stop it.
187 minutes elapsed between the time Trump finished his speech and his first attempt to calm the rioters by sending a video message asking his supporters to go home while assuring them: “We love you, you are very special.”
That inaction was “dereliction,” the report said, noting that Trump had more power than anyone else as the nation’s commander-in-chief. “He remained voluntarily inactive even while others, including his own vice president, acted,” he states.
Trump could be impeached
The seven Democrats and two Republicans on the committee suggest that Trump should be disbarred from future office, adhering to the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution which holds that anyone sworn to uphold the Constitution can be disbarred from office. for participating in insurrection or rebellion.
“He is not fit for any office,” writes the committee’s vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming.
The report suggests the Justice Department investigate or prosecute Trump for four crimes, including aiding the insurrection. Although criminal referrals have no legal value, they constitute a final statement by the commission after its exhaustive year-and-a-half investigation.
Democrats have already impeached Trump twice, the second time a week after the insurrection. On both occasions he was acquitted by the Senate. Other Democratic-led investigations looked into his finances, his business, his foreign ties and his family.
The symbolic and political value of the recommendations is historic, because it is the first time that a parliamentary committee has suggested holding a former president criminally responsible.
With AP and Reuters
