U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) carries the committee’s final report as he leaves after the last public meeting of the U.S. House Selection Committee investigating the January 6 attacks into the United States Capitol, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 19, 2022.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
The House January 6 long-awaited release select committee year-end report Thursday, limit an 18-month investigation into the 2021 violation of United States capital by a violent mob of former President’s supporters Donald Trump.
The damning 845-page report comes three days after the bipartisan committee voted unanimously refer Trump to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation and could be prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election defeat to the President Joe Biden.
Among the recommendations are such competent congressional committees to consider creating a “formal mechanism to assess whether to ban” Trump from future federal office due to evidence that he violated his constitutional oath to support the United States Constitution by participating in an uprising.
Report in a few weeks Trump announced that he will seek the Republican nomination for president in 2024.
“Our country has gone too far to allow a defeated President to turn himself into a successful tyrant by overthrowing our democratic institutions, inciting violence, and, as I have seen, , opens the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” wrote Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., in the preface to the report.
The committee’s vice chair, Representative Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, wrote in his own preface, “Every President in our history has defended this orderly transfer of power, except for person.”
“January 6, 2021 was the first time an American President has reneged on his Constitutional obligation to peacefully transfer power to the next,” Cheney wrote.
The first of eight chapters of the report is titled “The Big Lie,” a reference to Trump’s repeated false claims that he won the election.
That chapter notes that Trump attempted even before Election Day to “authorize the election process” by arguing that it would be ruined by vote-rigging, especially in relation to voting by mail. whose use has been expanded due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The second chapter, titled “I Just Want to Find 11,780 Votes,” details Trump’s attempt to overthrow the Electoral College, the body that actually chooses winners in presidential elections on the basis of the Electoral College. won the popular vote of candidates in each state and part of the two states.
The headline refers to what Trump said to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during a January 2, 2021 phone call in which the president pressured Raffensperger to take steps that could invalidate Raffensperger. Biden’s popular winning force in that state.
That chapter also details the broad campaign by Trump and his allies to get Republican-controlled legislatures in states Biden won from certifying election results or replacing presidential candidates. the list of electors of the Electoral College.
“The Selection Committee estimates that in the two months between the November election and the January 6 uprising, President Trump or his inner circle engaged in at least 200 acts of apparent outreach, pressure or condemnation, publicly or privately, against State or State legislators or local election administrators, to overturn the results of State elections,” the report said.
“This includes at least: 68 meetings, attempted or linked phone calls, or text messages, each directed at one or more State or local officials; 18 cases of comment prominently in public, with language directed at one or more of those officials; and 125 social media posts by President Trump or senior aides targeting one or more such officials, apparently explicitly or implicitly, and mainly from his own account,” the report said.
Pro-Trump protesters gather in front of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Jon Cherry | beautiful pictures
Subsequent chapters outline the goal of Trump and his allies to have alternate lists of electors presented to Congress instead of the actual lists Biden won, their effort to caused the Justice Department to question the integrity of the election and to convince then Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the Electoral College lists of several states.
The plan to pressure Pence is designed to determine who wins election to the House. Although Democrats held a majority of seats in that room at the time, Republicans could have delivered a victory for Trump because they held the majority of state delegations, each receiving one vote. systemically single vote.
The final three chapters focus on the lead up to the Capitol riots, Trump’s “negligence” of duty by refusing to suspend the crowd, and analysis of the attack on the Capitol.
Cheney, in the foreword to the report, noted, “What most of the public didn’t know prior to our investigation was this: Donald Trump’s own campaign officials told him early on that his fraudulent claims are false.”
“Senior Donald Trump Justice Department officials — each appointed by Donald Trump himself — investigated the allegations and told him repeatedly that his fraudulent claims were false,” Cheney wrote. truth,” wrote Cheney.
“Donald Trump’s White House lawyers also told him that his fraud allegations were untrue. From the outset, Donald Trump’s fraud allegations were meaninglessly fabricated, designed to strike at the patriotism of millions of men and women who love our country.”
In its recommendations, the January 6 committee urged the Senate to pass the Voting Numbers Act that the House passed. This act would reaffirm that a vice president does not have the authority or discretion to reject the official list of presidential electors submitted by their state governors.
The panel also said that courts and attorney-disciplinary bodies that regulate attorneys’ conduct “should continue to evaluate the attorneys’ conduct described in this Report.”
“Attorneys should not have full authority to use their legal license to undermine the constitutional and statutory process for the peaceful transfer of power in our government,” the report said.
In a recommendation titled “Violent Extremism,” the report said, ‘Federal agencies with intelligence and security duties, including the Secret Service, should … move forward. whole government strategy-
work to counter the threat of violent activity posed by all extremist groups, including white nationalist groups and violent anti-government groups, while respecting civil rights and First Amendment civil liberties of all citizens.”
Members of the Oath-Keepers militia group among supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, January 6, 2021.
Jim Bourg | Reuters
January 6 Dashboard has started share its proof with DOJ, but last month Appointment of special counsel to investigate whether Trump or others illegally interfered with the transition of power to Biden.
Without Trump’s encouragement, January 6 riots“will never happen,” board chairman Thompson, said in an interview earlier Thursday with MSNBC. “It’s going to be a normal transition of power that we do every four years when there’s a presidential election.”
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but under no circumstances should you tear down the town hall or the courthouse, and, God forbid, the U.S. Capitol,” Thompson said. “It’s just what I think for most Americans, it’s beyond imagination… And there’s still a lot of people who just can’t understand why our people do it.”
Among other matters, both the DOJ and House investigations have focused on the events of January 6, 2021, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and forced lawmakers and lawmakers alike. Pence had to flee the chambers of Congress.
Vice President Mike Pence (right) is escorted by Sgt. at the Arms Michael Stenger (left), from the House of Representatives to the Senate at the U.S. Capitol after a challenge was presented during a joint session to confirm President-elect Joe Biden, in Washington, U.S., May 6 1 year 2021.
Mike Theiler | Reuters
The invasion interrupted a joint session of Congress being held to confirm Biden’s victory in the Electoral College.
Pence, who is presiding over that session, resisted pressure from Trump and others to refuse to accept the Electoral College lists of some of the fluctuating states that have given Biden a margin of victory.
The House committee conducted more than 1,000 witness interviews, including those with Trump’s White House aides and lawyers, some of his adult children and close allies. . The panel also compiled hundreds of thousands of documents as part of the investigation.
Trump spread false claims about election fraud before and after the 2020 election, and pursued multiple efforts to reverse his defeat to Biden in the weeks following Election Day. His public campaign to do so culminated with a protest outside the White House on January 6, 2021, where he urged crowds to march with him to the Capitol to press Congress annuls the election results.
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | beautiful pictures
Trump has never marched to the Capitol like this, but instead spent hours inside the White House as his supporters attacked police officers inside and outside the Capitol, while flooding the streets. Parliament hall. Trump did not publicly urge the crowd to leave the Capitol until late that day, despite senior White House officials urging him to do so.
“You’re the commander-in-chief. You had an attack on the Capitol of the United States of America, and nothing happened?” General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the House committee.
“Didn’t call? Nothing? Zero?” Milley added.
In Monday’s vote, the committee introduce Trump to DOJ to prosecute four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and inciting an insurrection.
Separately, a state grand jury in Georgia is gathering evidence for a criminal investigation into Trump by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office for his attempt to get Georgia election officials to cancel Biden’s election victory in that state.
Trump is also under criminal investigation by the DOJ for removing government documents, some highly classified, from the White House when he left office.
