The investigative committee into the storming of the US Capitol published its final report on Thursday. The 845-page report concludes that former US President Donald Trump was criminally involved in a “multiple conspiracy” to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election. In addition, Trump failed to prevent his supporters from storming the Capitol.
The panel had interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, held ten hearings and received millions of pages of documents. The witnesses – some of Trump’s closest aides, as well as investigators and some of the rioters themselves – described in detail how the then president is said to have behaved in the weeks before the uprising.
On January 6, 2021, Republican supporters stormed the seat of the US Congress where his election defeat by Democrat Joe Biden was to be certified. The crowd entered the building, five people died. The committee had been dealing with the incident for almost 18 months, public hearings were staged as a TV spectacle.
The nine-member panel now concludes that the uprising “threatened democracy” and “endangered the lives of American lawmakers”. According to the report, the central cause was “a man”: Trump.
In a foreword to the report, outgoing Speaker of Parliament Nancy Pelosi is quoted as saying the results should be a “call to all Americans to remain vigilant in our democracy and cast our voice only to those who dutifully defend our Constitution.”
The report paints much of the incident as witnesses did at the hearings, which described a plan Trump and his advisers devised to try and undo Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. Pressure has been put on states, federal officials, legislators and Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump’s repeated claims of widespread voter fraud have resonated with his supporters, the committee said. They have been amplified on social media, adding to the mistrust of the government he has fueled during his four-year tenure. Trump did little to stop his supporters.
The lengthy, damning report comes at a time when Trump is running again for the presidency and faces multiple federal investigations, including investigations into his role in the Capitol storm and classified documents found at his Florida home. In addition, a committee of the House of Representatives is to publish its tax returns this week, which Trump has resisted for years.
In less than two weeks, after the midterm elections, the Democrats have to hand over their power to the Republicans in the House of Representatives. They had launched impeachment proceedings against Trump twice, most recently a week after the attack on the Capitol. Both times the Senate acquitted Trump. Other Democrat-led investigations had looked into his finances, business dealings, foreign ties and family.