WASHINGTON: The House of Representatives January 6 committee’s final report asserts that former United States President Donald Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.
The 845-page report (PDF) released on Thursday concludes an extraordinary 18-month investigation into the former president and the violent insurrection two years ago. It comes after the panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, held 10 hearings and obtained millions of pages of documents.
The witnesses – ranging from many of Trump’s closest aides to law enforcement to some of the rioters themselves – detailed Trump’s actions in the weeks ahead of the insurrection and how his wide-ranging pressure campaign to overturn his defeat directly influenced those who brutally pushed past the police and smashed through the windows and doors of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The central cause was “one man”, the report says: Trump. The insurrection gravely threatened democracy and “put the lives of American lawmakers at risk”, the nine-member panel concluded. In a foreword to the report, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the findings should be a “clarion call to all Americans: to vigilantly guard our Democracy and to give our vote only to those dutiful in their defense of our Constitution”. –Agencies
