The Jan. 6 committee‘s final report has been made public, accusing former President Donald Trump of engaging in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in the riot at the Capitol last year.
Roughly 18 months in the making, the report follows nine hearings in 2022 that carefully laid out evidence the committee has collected. The eight chapters and executive summary were released on Monday.
DONALD TRUMP IS ‘ABSOLUTELY GUILTY’ OF A CRIME AHEAD OF JAN. 6 REPORT RELEASE: KINZINGER
The full report clocks in at 845 pages, and the four appendices being made public for the first time focus on the Capitol’s security, the National Guard’s slow deployment, how foreign adversaries used Trump’s election claims to their advantage, and the financial backing of the “Stop the Steal” rally that devolved into the riot.
The report makes the case that Trump is liable for the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of his supporters physically tried to halt Congress from certifying the electoral vote counting that formalized Joe Biden’s election as president.
It concludes: “The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”
The report lays out much of the information first made public in the hearings over the summer. Some new details about how Trump attempted to reach Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger 18 times before the infamous Jan. 2 phone call in which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” the votes he needed to win the state. This was part of “200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation, targeting either State legislators or State or local election administrators, to overturn State election results.”
When the courts were rejecting the Trump campaign’s claims of a stolen election, lawyer Sidney Powell claimed in a Dec. 18, 2020, meeting that the judges were corrupt despite 22 being Republican appointees.
Concerning security issues on the day of the riot, the report concludes that Trump had sole authority to dispatch the National Guard but refused to do so.
The committee voted to release the final report during its last public meeting on Monday, during which it also unanimously agreed to make criminal referrals against Trump and several of his top allies.
It details the four criminal referrals against Trump made to the Justice Department: obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and inciting, assisting, or aiding/comforting an insurrection. Criminal referrals were also made against several Trump allies, including John Eastman, who was recommended for obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Although the criminal referrals could be politically damaging, the committee does not have prosecuting power, so it must rely on outside agencies that can press charges.
The report also includes referrals to the House Ethics Committee against four GOP lawmakers, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
Parts of the report are redacted for security purposes, something committee member Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) addressed earlier this month.
“There are some aspects that are law enforcement sensitive that may be redacted in some small ways, but our intention is to ensure that that this material gets out into the public and that people get to see the material by which we have made conclusions and recommendations on,” he said.
The committee had pledged to release its findings before the end of the year. Since wrapping the public hearings in October, it took testimony from Trump advisers Kellyanne Conway and Hope Hicks, as well as White House aide Anthony Ornato and Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R).
Some committee staff members were irritated that the report focused so heavily on Trump, done at the behest of Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), leaving aside the work of other teams focusing on security failures, according to a Washington Post report in November.
“Donald Trump is the first president in American history to attempt to overturn an election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. So, damn right Liz is ‘prioritizing’ understanding what he did and how he did it and ensuring it never happens again,” Cheney spokesman Jeremy Adler said at the time.
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McCarthy instructed the committee to save all the evidence it has collected, as the new Republican majority will shift the focus of the investigation to why law enforcement and intelligence agencies weren’t prepared for the riot.
Several members of the committee will not be returning to Congress in January. Cheney was defeated in her primary by Trump-endorsed Rep.-elect Harriet Hageman, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) chose not to run for reelection, and Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) was ousted in the general election by Rep.-elect Jen Kiggans (R-VA).
