The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has recommended in its final report that Donald Trump be barred from office again for the 2024 Republican nomination. The midterm elections have seen a slump in pro-Trump candidates and the emergence of rival figures within the party, most notably Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. “The main cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, followed by many others,” said a powerful two-sentence summary of the report, which was released overnight. It reads: “Without him, the events of January 6th would not have happened.”
In the end, the commission accused the former president of “a multi-pronged plot to overthrow the 2020 presidential election.” Trump’s actions that day justified a constitutional ban on New York real estate developers from holding elected offices again. Before Jan. 6, Trump and his aides were involved in “at least 200 apparent acts of public or private propaganda, pressure, or denunciation” between Election Day and Jan. 6… On Monday, the committee voted to refer Trump to the Justice Department on at least four felonies, including rioting and obstructing an official congressional process. The commission also condemned domestic law enforcement agencies. “Federal and local law enforcement had multiple streams of information predicting violence against the Capitol before January 6,” the report said. “Although some of that intelligence was fragmentary, it should have been sufficient to warrant far more vigorous preparations for the security of the joint session.”
Among the evidence presented in the panel’s final report was that there had been 68 meetings, attempted or connected phone calls, or text messages aimed at pressuring state or local officials toward the goal of overturning the election’s results. The January 6 committee’s report offers a clear analysis of the events leading up to that day and a path toward using the 14th amendment against insurrection to bar Trump and his allies from future office.“Our country has come too far to allow a defeated President to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence, and, as I saw it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” said Mississippi Democratic congressman and committee chair Bennie Thompson in the foreword. The findings, published days before Republicans take control of the lower legislative house, automatically dissolving the panel, offer the department of justice a comparative text to its investigation.
