To put it simply: Secret Service agents surrounding the Vice President believe they are about to fight to the death to protect the next presidential successor. I have been reading and writing about presidential security and history for decades now, and I cannot think of a parallel series of fears, except perhaps when Vice President Richard’s motorcade Nixon was attacked in Caracas in 1958, at the time considered “the most violent attack ever committed against a senior US official while abroad.”
4. Great unknowns remain
As the committee noted, more than 30 witnesses invoked their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, leading to several critical gaps in the committee’s knowledge. As the report states, “The Commission has significant concerns about potential attempts to obstruct its investigation, including the fact that some advisers (some of whom are paid by groups involved in with the former President) who may have advised the client to provide false or misleading testimony to the Commission.” It will be interesting to see if any potential indictments and investigations by the Justice Department continue to lift the curtain on the White House and the role of the likes of Steve Bannon and Roger Stone.
5. Parts of Trump’s plot to target all levels of government officials involved in counting votes and confirming elections
One of the most tragic hearings from the January 6 Committee focused last summer on the loss of life caused by President Trump launching reckless personal attacks on local officials. relatively anonymous local and state states in the battleground states, who are responsible for counting votes and validating votes—the attacks are diabolical and disturbing are some officials who have done nothing wrong and is serving in a nonpartisan role, fled home due to safety concerns. And the final report is filled with page after page detailing the horrific — and worse — claims that Trump directed his supporters to attack officials in places like Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia.
In Arizona, the committee reported, “Maricopa County scribe Adrian Fontes testified before Congress that his family packed ‘bags’ in case they needed to evacuate and because of threats threatened, he moved his children’ out of his home family at least once in three days after serious threats to [his] family safety.’” In Michigan, after Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield resisted Trump’s pleas to overturn the outcome. of the state,”[Trump] or his team maliciously tweeted Shirkey’s personal cell phone number and Chatfield’s number turned out to be false. Shirkey received nearly 4,000 text messages afterward, and another private citizen reported being inundated with calls and texts intended for Chatfield.” As the committee said, the threats from Trump and countless other supporters were un-American and far-fetched: “Again, this is the behavior of thugs and criminals, each one of them must be held accountable.”
In addition to the election officials themselves, the report contains many new details about the Trump campaign’s efforts to generate and transmit to the National Archives and Congress lists of fake electors, who would vote for Trump instead of Biden, as their states have been duly certified. One of the interesting questions that remained after the January 6 report was whether the state attorney general or local prosecutor in any state would read and examine evidence of a fake election scheme to criminal prosecution.
6. Trump’s legal and criminal exposure is real
The Commission’s own criminal recommendations of January 6th caused quite a stir in December, but the final report reminds us that federal judge David Carter also concluded in the court’s struggle. on the committee’s work that President Trump may have violated two criminal statutes: 18 USC § 1512(c ) (engaged in corrupt practices, obstructed, or influenced the primary electoral college vote count process. of the National Assembly); and 18 USC § 371 (conspiracy to defraud the United States). And indeed, any prosecutor looking at this report will see a lot of evidence of corrupt practices and notably, knowledge that Trump understands he is acting corruptly—because White House aides, attorneys, and campaign officials have repeatedly told him he is doing so. As the committee wrote, “President Trump made corrupt, dishonest, and illegal choices to pursue his plans.”
7. Ministry of Justice almost collapsed
Who wrote the book about Nixon in 1973 Saturday Night Massacre and in 2005 Comey-Mueller-Bush . confrontation via NSA STELLAR WIND Eavesdropping Program, I opened my eyes wide when I read passages about how Trump tried to appoint Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general in one of his last moves to overturn the election—an event close to like forcing the entire leadership of the Department of Justice to resign. Of course, Bill Barr resigned early, leaving acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen in charge of the department in January 2021, along with acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue. The two confronted Trump when he tried to install Clark, who willingly signed a letter stating that the DOJ was suspicious of the election. Donoghue saw the possibility that the letter “could very well have plunged us into a constitutional crisis,” and White House adviser Pat Cipollone declared it a “murder-suicide pact.”
While Trump persisted, he was told that all other assistant attorney generals would resign if he pushed for change—but the committee’s work shows that even if the confrontation unfolds, Contemporary White House documents show that Clark was ready [italics in original] appointed acting attorney general.” Ultimately, Trump backed out as the possibility of mass resignations increased, and was told by assistant attorney general Steve Engel—a favorite Trump appointee himself—“Clark will be here alone with you.” a hostile building, people stay, and nothing will happen. done.” Engel said that Clark would lead a “graveyard.” Trump eventually said, “It won’t be worth breaking up,” and canceled the plan.
8. The U.S. government had solid, credible intelligence that bad things could happen on January 6th—and they didn’t act
The committee makes it clear in the second sentence of its executive summary that Trump owns everything that happened on January 6, stating that “the committee’s most obvious and important conclusion: the central cause of the 6th day January is one person, former President Donald Trump, whom many others have followed. None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.” But it is also clear from the committee’s report that the US government, both the security agencies and top White House staff, failed to act on warnings that armed, violent individuals would arrived in Washington on January 6 in response to the president’s tweet on Twitter. December 19, 2020summons them and promises, “Stay there, it will be wild!”
In fact, no less than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, remembers Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist saying on a National Security Council call, “the biggest threat is a direct attack on the Capitol.” As Milley said, “I’ll never forget that.” The Secret Service was alerted several times, including on Christmas Eve in a document titled “Armed and Ready, Mr. President” summarizing the disturbing tweets and at a press conference. The December 30 internal intelligence briefing specifically mentioned the president’s fiery tweet. The Metropolitan Police were alerted, both by civil extremism researchers as well as by the Secret Service itself, which forwarded the warnings on December 29. The FBI released an intelligence bulletin. DC area on January 5, warning of “Possibility of Violence in Washington, D.C. Area related to ‘StopTheSteal’ protest planned for January 6, 2021.” The bulletin even included maps of the Capitol that were posted to a pro-Trump website. And much more than that.
