The January 6 committee has released its final report on the Capitol Hill riots of January 6, 2021. According to the committee, former President Donald Trump and his inner circle tried to illegally overthrow Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
The report is 845 pages in length and over 1,000 interviews were done, as well as digging into documents, call records, text messages and more.
What Are the Report’s Conclusions?
The report says Trump actively attempted to switch up electors in losing states to hand himself the victory and engaged in a “seditious conspiracy” to inspire commotion at the Capitol on January 6.
Specifically, the report says Trump and a cabal of officials loyal to him tried over “200” times to pressure and force state election individuals to change the results of the election at the state level.
They also include social media messages sent out by Trump. The messages claimed fraud or also directly went after and condemned individuals at the state level, claiming they were part of a conspiracy against Trump or not doing their jobs.
The head of the J6 committee is a Democratic congressman by the name of Bennie Thompson. He said that the four charges referred to the Department of Justice recommending criminal charges against Trump are something he’s “confident” about.
The information provided by the committee will now potentially be used by DOJ Prosecutor Jack Smith, who’s also looking into the accusations about Trump keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump Responds
Responding on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the report is a “partisan” matter and has no real factual basis.
Instead, he emphasized how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should have followed his request for more authorities and National Guard troops to be present at the rally on January 6. He also talked about how he still is certain the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump famously pressured Georgia’s Secretary of State Raffensperger, for example, to “find” him “11,780 votes” and hand him Georgia, saying he was sure they’d won anyway and Raffensperger should show his loyalty and patriotism by doing so.
However, according to Trump, all of this was only in pursuit of obtaining the victory he was sure had been stolen from him by the Democrats.
Read the Select Committee’s Final Report ⤵️https://t.co/UwqB61nZkl
— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) December 23, 2022
Should Trump Be Barred From Office?
Whether or not the DOJ goes ahead with criminal charges, the effects of this report will circle around whether or not Trump should be barred from office.
If he really did engage in “sedition” against the United States, then obviously that would prevent him from leading it. According to the report, a lawyer named Kenneth Chesebro came up with a plan for putting fake electors in to swing the election.
The claim is that by refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election, Trump led directly to the events of January 6, 2021, when several thousand people entered the US Capitol.
This article appeared in StatesmanPost and has been published here with permission.Did the January 6 committee miss these tweets? pic.twitter.com/up9Mtak2BD
— Michael J. Morrison (@OfficeOfMike) December 19, 2022
