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The House Jan. 6 committee released the final report of its investigation Thursday night.
Across more than 800 pages, it exposes how President Donald Trump ignored lawyers and advisers who told him he lost the election fairly, and instead forged an attempt to undo Joe Biden’s victory.
The chapter titles alone tell a story.
Starting with the ‘Big Lie’ and ‘I Just Want to Find 11,780 Votes’, when Trump and his allies searched for proof that they had been misled, to the ‘Legal Coup’, when they formulated a way to prevent Congress from certify Joe Biden’s victory, builds to a crescendo before reaching ‘Be There Will be Wild’.
These are the key points of the report:
The attack on the Capitol came after President Donald Trump made repeated false accusations that the 2020 election was stolen from him and after he delivered a fiery speech on January 6, 2021, at the Ellipse behind the White House.
“The central cause of January 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, who was followed by many others,” the report said, saying the violence would not have happened otherwise.
‘I’m sure Potus loves this’: Text sent by aide hints at Trump’s approval
The committee repeatedly focused on Trump’s inaction during the riots. He watched the events unfold live on television, but made no public statement for 187 minutes.
But he also hinted that he might have quietly approved or enjoyed the spectacle of thousands of his supporters breaking through police barricades and ransacking the US Capitol.
His assistants seemed so too.
At 2:49 p.m., as the Capitol was under attack, speechwriter Robert Gabriel sent a text. “I’m sure Potus loves this,” he wrote, using an acronym for the President of the US.
It can explain other testimony establishing how Trump was reluctant to suspend the rioters.
White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who provided some of the most explosive testimony, said she heard Chief of Staff Mark Meadows tell White House counsel Pat Cipollone: ”He doesn’t want to do anything, Pat.” .
Cassidy Hutchinson was a top aide to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows at the time of the January 6 Capitol riot, and turned out to be a key witness in the investigation.
The nine-member committee concluded that the insurrection seriously threatened democracy and “put the lives of US lawmakers at risk.”
Trump and his aides engaged in 200 acts of pressure on state officials
In its report, the committee estimated that from the election to Jan. 6, the president and his advisers made hundreds of efforts to pressure officials.
The targets included states it lost but had GOP-led legislatures such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.
This included at least 68 meetings, attempted or connected phone calls, or text messages, each directed to one or more state or local officials.
Then there were 18 instances of prominent public comment, with language directed at one or more officials.
And this being Trump, there were 125 social media posts by the president or his top advisers directed at one or more officials, either explicitly or implicitly, and mostly from his own account.
During a January 2, 2021 call, Trump pressured Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” one of hundreds of acts to interfere with state results.
For example, after the Associated Press called the race in Georgia on November 12, President Trump tweeted harsh criticism of Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Often these tweets asked them to take specific actions that would have shifted the election results in their favor, such as rejecting a court agreement that set out the procedures for verifying signatures on absentee ballots.
Other times it was more private, like the phone call to Raffensperger in which he pressured him to “find 11,780 votes.”
The Trump crowd arrived armed for violence with 269 knives and 242 cans of pepper spray
Trump argued that his supporters did not need to be tested with magnetometers, but was rejected.
It meant that hours before their rally at the Ellipse on January 6, officers quickly realized the crowd was equipped for possible violence.
“In addition to intelligence reports indicating potential violence on Capitol Hill, police seized weapons and other prohibited items from the streets and Secret Service on tape recorders for Ellipse’s speech,” the report said.
The Secret Service confiscated a haul of weapons from the 28,000 spectators who passed through the magnetometers: 242 pepper spray canisters, 269 knives or blades, 18 brass knuckles, 18 tasers, 6 pieces of bulletproof vests, 3 gas masks, 30 batons or blunt instruments and 17 miscellaneous items such as scissors, needles or screwdrivers.
“And thousands of others deliberately stayed out of the magnetometers, or left their packages outside.”
The crowd at the Trump rally braced for violence on January 6. Secret Service officers seized 242 canisters of pepper spray, 269 knives or razors, and 18 brass knuckles, among other weapons.
A mob of Trump supporters climbs the front of the Capitol on January 6 to enter
The report’s 11 recommendations, including Amendment 14
The report lays out 11 ways Congress can help protect democracy and ensure the peaceful transfer of power from one president to the next.
In particular, it calls on Congress to establish a mechanism to exclude Trump from Congress, based on the 14th Amendment.
‘Under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, a person who has previously sworn an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, but who has “participated in an insurrection” against it, or has rendered “aid or comfort Enemies of the Constitution” may be disqualified from future federal or state office.
That will no doubt face fierce opposition from Trump’s allies in Congress.
But other recommendations are already on the way to becoming law, such as a revision of the Electoral Count Act, which is heading for final approval in Congress.
Clarifies that the vice president does not have the power to revoke electoral results.