On January 6, a House Committee Will Release Its Final Report on the Attack on the Capitol

By Jaslin On Dec 23, 2022

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol delivered its final report late Thursday night, following nine public hearings and interviews with hundreds of witnesses. The book’s 814 pages are broken into eight chapters: The Big Lie; “I just want to find 11,780 votes”; “President of the Senate plan”; “Just call it corrupt and leave the rest to me”; A coup in quest of a legal framework; “Be there, will be wild”; 187 minutes of negligence; and attack analysis.

Ad CompareCards “Game-Changer” for Americans in Debt: 0% Interest Until 2024. The committee recommended that “Congressional committees of jurisdiction consider adopting a formal procedure for considering whether to ban those individuals listed in this Report [including former President Donald Trump] from holding future federal or state office,” among other things.

The committee recommended Trump and others to the Justice Department earlier this week for “potential prosecution under 18 U.S.C. 2383, including for aiding and providing aid and comfort to an insurgency,” according to the report.

You May Be Interested In:

According to the report, between the November election and the Jan. 6 attack, Trump and members of his inner circle engaged in at least 200 public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation aimed at state legislators or state or local election administrators in an effort to overturn state election results.

Between November 30, 2020, and December 3, 2020, the Trump team contacted or attempted to contact over 200 state legislators from battleground states to collect support for prospective statehouse resolutions to overturn the election, according to the report. Some messages stated that they were sent “on behalf of the president.”

Furthermore, nearly 300 state legislators from battleground states reportedly attended a private briefing with Trump, attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, and others on Jan. 2, in which Trump reportedly urged them to exercise what he called “the real power” to choose electoral votes before Jan. 6, because “I don’t think the country is going to take it,” Trump said on the call.

The committee also reported that, in the year preceding the Jan. 6 attack, there were at least nine incidents in which far-right protesters entered state capitols, with at least four of these incursions involving identifiable individuals who later participated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol (in Michigan, Idaho, Arizona, and Oregon).

According to the paper, “a week before the attack, [former Trump worker Justin] Caporale said in a December 29th text to [Trump campaign donor Caroline] Wren that after the President’s planned speech, there may be [sic] a call to action to march to the [C]apitol and create noise.'” According to the committee, this was the first hint that the president intended to call on his supporters to march on the Capitol.

According to the report, after Trump told supporters on the Ellipse to “take back our country” and “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” the Secret Service dispatched a last-minute response team “to filter in with the crowds” in the event the president made his way to the Capitol, as well as to establish an emergency plan “if things go south.”

The Secret Service did not immediately react to an ABC News request about the presence of agents in the crowd. Prior to the release of the final report, the committee released a 160-page summary of its findings on Monday, naming Trump as the “primary cause” of the Jan. 6 attack.

The committee’s conclusions were presented as 17 findings in the report’s summary, including that Trump knew his actions “would be illegal” when he pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to “refuse to count electoral votes”; that Trump “unlawfully” pressured state officials and legislatures to overturn the election; that he “oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives”; and that he never ordered the deployment of the

Chairman Bennie Thompson of the committee announced on January 6 that the final report would be released on Wednesday, however, the panel announced Wednesday afternoon that the report would be delayed until Thursday.

Instead, the committee released the interview transcripts of 34 witnesses who were interviewed as part of the 17-month investigation on Wednesday. Former President Donald Trump’s one-time national security adviser Michael Flynn, Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, Infowars host Alex Jones, onetime Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone, and Trump-backed attorneys John Eastman and Jenna Ellis were among those whose testimony was released.

The majority of the transcripts included witness responses citing their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. On Monday, the panel said that it would refer at least four criminal allegations against Trump to the Department of Justice in connection with his activities during the Capitol incident. A House committee released interview transcripts of 34 witnesses on January 6th.

The committee also announced that it would submit Eastman, who created a plan for Trump to cling to power by falsely stating Pence could reject valid voters during the Jan. 6 vote certification, to the DOJ on several offenses.

The references, on the other hand, are mostly symbolic. The DOJ is under no obligation to act on them, and it has been conducting its own investigation into the events of January 6. The committee also stated that at least four sitting Republican members of Congress would be sent to the House Ethics Committee for “appropriate discipline,” including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Rep Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Rep Scott Perry, R-PA, and Rep Andy Biggs, R-Arizona.