Jan. 6 report blames Trump entirely for Capitol insurrection

[ad_1]

Trump supporters on January 6, 2021. (Source: Associated Press)

A massive final report released by the House committee on January 6 late Thursday (local time) blames one person for the 2021 Capitol uprising: former President Donald Trump.

The dense 814-page document details the findings of the panel’s 18-month investigation, drawing on more than 1,000 witness interviews and more than a million pages of source documents. The committee uncovered a “multi-part conspiracy” orchestrated by Trump and his closest allies, all aimed at undoing his 2020 election defeat.

By laying out the extraordinary details of its pressure on states, federal officials and Vice President Mike Pence, the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans says it is trying to prevent something similar from happening again.

The panel also aims to prevent Trump, who is running for president again, from ever returning to office.

Among other recommendations, the panel suggests that Congress consider expelling him and others who aided him from federal office for his role in the insurgency, in which a violent mob of his supporters took to the streets. stormed the Capitol and interrupted certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

“Our country has gone too far to allow a defeated president to turn into a victorious tyrant by overthrowing our democratic institutions, fomenting violence and, as I have seen, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” the committee chair, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, wrote in a preface to the report.

The report traces Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud to conversations with some of his allies before Election Day, evidence that his plan was “premeditated”, according to the committee. After executing this plan by questioning the legitimate results on election night “Frankly, we won this election,” he told television cameras, he deliberately aired false allegations of fraud.

January 6 riots. (Source: 1News)

Many of Trump’s White House advisers told him the lies weren’t true, according to multiple interviews with the committee, and his campaign lost a series of lawsuits challenging the results. But the former president did not hesitate.

“Donald Trump was not a passive consumer of these lies,” the committee wrote. “He actively propagated them.”

The false allegations “provoked violence from his supporters on January 6,” the committee wrote. Trump summoned them to Washington and ordered them in a fiery speech to march to the Capitol even though some “were angry and some were armed.”

And after the violence began, Trump waited hours to tell them to stop. It was a “dereliction of duty”, the committee said.

As he lost in court, Trump “focused” on key battleground states that Biden had won and leaned on GOP state officials to override the will of their constituents. The plan was wide-ranging, according to the committee, ranging from pressuring state legislatures and election officials to creating fake voter lists. The panel obtained emails and documents showing discussions within the White House and with outside advisers about how such a system might work.

A video of former President Donald Trump plays on a screen during the committee’s final meeting. (Source: Associated Press)

Perhaps the most astonishing attempt to pressure a state official was Trump’s remarkable January 2, 2021 phone call with Georgian Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked him to ” find” votes. Raffensperger did not comply.

The panel assessed that Trump and his entourage engaged in “at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach” to state officials between the election and the insurgency. At the same time, the president was trying to convince Justice Department officials to follow his plan.

“If enough state officials had accepted President Trump’s plot, his attempt to stay in power might have worked,” the committee wrote. “It is fortunate that a critical mass of honorable public servants resisted pressure from President Trump to participate in this program.”

As Trump aggressively pushed Mike Pence to illegally oppose congressional certification of Biden’s victory while presiding over the joint session of Congress, the vice president’s life was increasingly in danger, found the committee.

At the start of the joint session at 1 p.m., Pence announced that he would not. At the time, there were hundreds of Trump supporters outside the Capitol, some chanting “Hang Mike Pence.” Pence eventually fled the Senate Chamber and narrowly escaped the rioters.

“It was a scene unprecedented in American history,” the committee wrote. “The President of the United States had annoyed a mob chasing his own vice president.”

Trump was determined to go to the Capitol with his supporters, the investigation found, but almost everyone thought it was mostly a bad idea, his security detail.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, testified over the summer to a conversation she had with former Trump security chief Tony Ornato, where he recalled Trump took to his safety after his speech and even grabbed the wheel of the presidential SUV.

In the report, the committee writes that Ornato denied Hutchinson’s story in a deposition last month, saying he was unaware of any real push by Trump to join his supporters on Capitol Hill. The committee said it continued to have “significant concerns about the credibility” of his testimony.

House Jan. 6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, left, and Vice Chairman Liz Cheney, right. (Source: Associated Press)

The driver of the presidential SUV testified that he did not see Trump and could not recall whether Trump rushed towards him. The driver, who is not named in the report, recalled Trump asking within 30 seconds of entering the vehicle if he could drive to the Capitol. A Secret Service employee told the committee that Trump’s determination to go to the Capitol had put officers on high alert.

“[We] all knew…it was going to move on if he physically walked to the Capitol,” an unidentified employee said. “I don’t know if you want to use the word ‘insurrection’, ‘coup’, whatever. .”

Trump stayed in the White House, watching the violence on TV for hours while refusing to ask his supporters to leave.

The committee also makes its work, including transcripts, public for the Justice Department and the public to see.

“We are confident that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice,” Thompson said.

[ad_2]