Donald Trump speaks to followers outside the White House, January 6 (Tasos Katopodis/Getty)
The House select committee on the Capitol Attack has released its final report, finding that the central cause was “one man” — Donald Trump.
On Monday, the committee concluded its 18-month investigation with the recommendation to the Justice Department of four criminal charges against Trump: aid to insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to make false statements, and conspiracy to defraud the US Government.
EA on Monocle 24, BBC, and Times Radio: The Criminal Charges v. “America’s Grifter” Donald Trump
House Committee on Capitol Attack Votes for Referral of Criminal Charges v. Trump
In the final report, the committee provides the basis for that recommendation, based on more than 1 million pages of documents, video, audio, and more than 1,000 interviews. It describes “a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election”.
That evidence has led to an overriding and straightforward conclusion: The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of Jan. 6 would have happened without him.
The report also details the roles of potential “co-conspirators” in Trump’s inner circle, including Mark Meadows, his Chief of Staff; attorney John Eastman, who drafted the plan to block the Congressional confirmation of Joe Biden as 46th US President; Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani; Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump tried to install as Attorney General to overturn the 2020 election; and lawyer Kenneth Chesebro.
The committee makes a series of recommendations to prevent future attempts to subvert the Constitution and the US Government.
One recommendation, the overhaul of the Electoral Count Act, is scheduled for final approval by the House on Friday. The reform clarifies that a Vice President has no authority to reject electoral slates submitted by the states. It is a response to the plotting of Trump and his advisors for Mike Pence to override the Congressional confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden in its session on January 6.
Other recommendations include:
- Designation of the counting of electoral votes by Congress as a “National Special Security Event”
- Review of the Insurrection Act
- Strengthening the enforcement of the 14th Amendment’s ban on insurrectionists holding office
- Expansion of scrutiny of extremist groups, including white nationalists and violent anti-government groups, by federal law enforcement agencies
- Legislation to bolster Congressional subpoena power
- Toughened penalties against those who threaten election workers
- Consideration by bar associations if lawyers who aided Trump’s attempts to overturn the election should be punished.
Diary of An Attempted Coup
In the report, the committee expanded its documentation, from hearings and an Executive Summary released on Monday, of Trump’s plotting to stay in office. Spreading lies about the election, he and his advisors created fake slates of Trump electors in states won by Biden. Trump pressured state officials, the Justice Department, and finally former Vice President Mike Pence to alter results and block Biden’s certification.
When those efforts did not work, Trump called on supporters to come to Washington and then march on the Capitol to halt the confirmation of Biden’s victory. Rejecting the pleas of staff and even his daughter Ivanka, Trump did nothing as the mob invaded the Capitol, attacking security personnel and threatening the execution of lawmakers and Pence, for more than three hours.
See also EA Video Special: The Capitol Attack and the Breakdown of US Political Culture
The committee summarizes how, in the words of Attorney General William Barr, Trump never showed any “indication of interest in what the actual facts were”. The report explains:
Donald Trump was no passive consumer of these lies He actively propagated them. Time and again President Trump was informed that his election fraud claims were not true. He chose to spread them anyway. He did so even after they were legally tested and rejected in dozens of lawsuits.
