WASHINGTON – A final report from a House committee on Jan. 6 alleges that Donald Trump criminally participated in a “multi-pronged conspiracy” to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to stop his supporters’ attack on the Capitol, concluding an extraordinary 18-month investigation the case of the former president and the violent uprising two years ago.
The 814-page report released Thursday came after the panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, held 10 hearings and obtained millions of pages of documents. Witnesses — from many of Trump’s closest law enforcement aides to some of the rioters — detailed Trump’s actions in the weeks leading up to the uprising and how his broad pressure campaign to reverse his defeat had a direct impact on those who were brutally beaten by police and crushed Capitol windows and doors January 6, 2021
“The main cause of January 6 was one person, former President Donald Trump, followed by many others,” the report said. “Without him, not a single event would have happened on January 6.”
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The insurgency seriously threatened democracy and “endangered the lives of American lawmakers,” the nine-member panel concluded.
The report’s eight chapters of findings tell the story in much the same way as the panel’s hearings this summer — detailing many aspects of the remarkable plan Trump and his advisers have devised to try to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory. Lawmakers describe his pressure on states, federal officials, lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence to game the system or break the law.
Trump’s repeated false claims about widespread voter fraud have resonated with his supporters, the committee noted, and have been amplified on social media, building on the distrust of government he has nurtured during his four years in office. And he did little to stop them when they turned to violence and stormed the Capitol.
The massive, damning report comes as Trump is running for president again and faces several federal investigations, including those into his role in the insurgency and the presence of classified documents at his Florida estate. This week is particularly difficult for him, as a House committee must release his tax returns after years of fighting to keep them private. Republicans blamed Trump’s worse-than-expected performance in the midterm elections, leaving him in his most politically vulnerable state since winning the 2016 election.
It’s also the last act for House Democrats, who are ceding power to Republicans in less than two weeks and have spent most of their four years in power investigating Trump. Democrats have twice impeached Trump, the second time a week after the uprising. Both times he was acquitted by the Senate. Other Democratic-led investigations probed his finances, businesses, foreign ties and his family.
On Monday, a panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans formally handed over its investigation to the Justice Department, recommending that the department investigate the former president’s four crimes, including aiding and abetting an insurgency. Although the criminal charges have no legal force, they are the latest statement by the committee after its extensive, year-and-a-half investigation.
Trump tried to discredit the report, calling committee members “thugs and scoundrels” as he continued to falsely dispute his 2020 loss.
In response to the group’s criminal appeals, Trump said, “These people don’t understand that when they come after me, freedom-loving people are rallying around me. It strengthens me.”
The committee also began releasing hundreds of transcripts of its interviews. On Thursday, the panel released the transcripts of two closed-door interviews with former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified in person at a televised hearing over the summer and described in vivid detail Trump’s efforts to influence the election and his indifference to the election. violence as it happened.
In two interviews, both conducted after her July hearing appearance, she described how many Trump allies, including her lawyer, pressured her not to say too much in her committee interviews.
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