Commission of January 6 closes after recommending impeachment to Trump

The House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol is wrapping up its duties, after completing its 18-month investigation and submitting its findings to the Justice Department along with a recommendation to impeach former President Donald Trump. .

The commission’s term officially ends Tuesday when the new Republican-majority House of Representatives is inaugurated. Many of the commission’s staff have already departed, and those who remain have spent the past two weeks publishing much of the panel’s material, including the 814-page final report, approximately 200 witness interview transcripts and documents used to support their claims. conclusions.

Lawmakers have said they want their work made public in order to emphasize the seriousness of the attack and Trump’s attempts on several fronts to try to overturn the election result.

“Accountability is crucial now to prevent any future plans to nullify an election,” the committee’s Democratic chairman, Bennie Thompson, and its Republican vice chairman, Liz Cheney, said in a farewell message Monday. “We have made a series of criminal recommendations and our justice system is responsible for what follows.”

Some of the commission’s work — such as videotaping hundreds of witness interviews — will not be made public at this time. The commission will send those videos and other records it collected to the National Archives, which by law will make them available to the public for up to 50 years. Commission members said they did not release that video now because it would have been too difficult to edit and censor sensitive information.

However, incoming Republican leaders could try to obtain such materials much sooner. A clause in a package of proposed House rules released Sunday calls for the National Archives to transfer “any records related to the commission” back to the House no later than January 17.

It is unknown whether the Republican-led House of Representatives could enforce the clause or what it would do with those materials.

The commission reached its conclusions after one of the most aggressive and extensive legislative investigations in recent memory. The panel formally or informally interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, collected more than 1 million documents, and held 10 high-profile hearings. The two Republicans and seven Democrats on the panel managed to conduct the investigation with little interference after House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy refused to nominate members of the Republican minority, upset that the House Speaker tall, Nancy Pelosi, turned down two of those she had recommended.

In the end, the panel unanimously concluded that Trump coordinated a “conspiracy” on multiple levels, lobbying states, federal officials and lawmakers to try to overturn his defeat, and inspired a violent mob of supporters to attack the Capitol and interrupt the certification of the victory of President Joe Biden. The panel recommended that the Justice Department prosecute Trump on four counts, including aiding an insurrection.

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