WASHINGTON-
An 800-page report to be released Thursday by House investigators will conclude that then-President Donald Trump criminally planned to overturn his 2020 election loss and “provoked supporters to violence” on Capitol Hill with false claims of widespread voter fraud.
The resulting January 6, 2021 insurrection by Trump supporters threatened democracy with “horrific” brutality toward law enforcement and “put the lives of US lawmakers at risk,” according to the report’s executive summary.
“The central cause of January 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, who was followed by many others,” read the House of Representatives’ January 6 committee report, which is expected to be released in its entirety. Thursday. “None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”
Ahead of the report’s release, on Wednesday night the committee released 34 transcripts of the 1,000 interviews it conducted over the past 18 months. Most of those released are witnesses who invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The report’s eight chapters of findings will largely reflect nine hearings this year that produced evidence from private interviews and millions of pages of documents. They tell the story of Trump’s extraordinary and unprecedented campaign to overturn his defeat and his campaign to pressure state officials, the Justice Department, members of Congress and his own vice president to change the vote.
A 154-page summary of the report released Monday details how Trump, a Republican, amplified false claims on social media and in public appearances, encouraging his supporters to travel to Washington and protest Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory. presidential. And how he told them to “fight like crazy” at a huge rally in front of the White House that morning and then did little to stop the violence as they beat up the police, stormed the Capitol and sent lawmakers running for their lives. .
It was a “multi-part conspiracy,” the committee concludes.
The massive and damning report comes as Trump is running for president again and is also facing multiple federal investigations, including investigations into his role in the insurrection and the presence of classified documents on his Florida property. A House committee is expected to release his tax returns in the coming days, documents he has fought for years to keep private. And Republicans have blamed him for a worse-than-expected showing in the midterms, leaving him in his most politically vulnerable state since he won the 2016 election.
It is also the culmination of four years of a Democratic majority in the House that has devoted much of its time and energy to investigating Trump and is ceding power to Republicans in two weeks. Democrats impeached Trump twice, both times he was acquitted by the Senate, and investigated his finances, his business, his foreign ties and his family.
But the Jan. 6 investigation has been the most personal for lawmakers, most of whom were on Capitol Hill when Trump supporters stormed the building and disrupted Biden’s victory certification.
While the lasting impact of the investigations remains to be seen (most Republicans have remained loyal to the former president), the committee hearings were watched by tens of millions of people over the summer. And 44 percent of voters in the November midterm elections said the future of democracy was their top consideration at the polls, according to AP VoteCast, a national poll of the electorate.
“This committee is nearing the end of its job, but as a country we remain in strange and uncharted waters,” the panel’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said at a meeting Monday to adopt the report and recommend criminal charges against Triumph. “We have never had a president of the United States provoke a violent attempt to block the transfer of power. I think almost two years later, this is still a time for reflection and reckoning.”
The members of the “reckoning” committee waiting are criminal charges against Trump and key allies. But only the Justice Department has the power to prosecute, so the panel sent references recommending that the department investigate the former president for four crimes, including aiding an insurrection.
While its main points are familiar, the January 6 report will provide new details from the hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents the committee has collected. Transcripts and some videos are expected to be released in the next two weeks as well. Republicans will take the House on January 3, when the panel will be dissolved.
“I guarantee there will be some very interesting new information in the report and even more in the transcripts,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told “CBS Mornings.”
The transcripts released Wednesday include Jeffrey Clark, a senior Trump Justice Department official who worked to promote Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and John Eastman, a conservative lawyer and architect of Trump’s latest efforts to stay in office. The charge. Each invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Also included in the statement is testimony from witnesses associated with extremist groups who were involved in the planning prior to the attack. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted last month of seditious conspiracy for his role in the planning, and former Proud Boys frontman Enrique Tarrio spoke before the committee. Tarrio and four other members of the extremist group are in court on similar charges this month.
The summary of the report describes how Trump refused to accept the legal result of the 2020 election and planned to overturn his defeat. Trump pressured state legislators to hold votes that invalidated Biden’s electors, tried to “corrupt the US Department of Justice.” by urging department officials to make false statements about the election and repeatedly trying personally to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to change democracy with unprecedented objections in the joint session of Congress, he says.
Trump has sought to discredit the report, branding committee members “thugs and scoundrels” while continuing to falsely question his 2020 defeat.
In response to the panel’s criminal references, Trump said that “These people don’t understand that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It makes me stronger”.
The report will provide minute-by-minute details of what Trump was doing — and not doing — for about three hours as his supporters beat up police and stormed the Capitol. Trump riled up the crowd at the rally that morning and then did little to stop his supporters for several hours as he watched the violence unfold on television inside the White House and ignored pleas from those in attendance to stop it. .
Lawmakers point to evidence about Trump’s actions that they don’t already have from that time, including call logs, official journal entries or calls to any security officers.
“President Trump did not contact a single senior national security official during the day. Not at the Pentagon, not at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Capitol Police Department, or the DC mayor’s office,” the report said.
Official photographs of the president at those times are also missing.
“President Trump appears to have directed that the White House photographer not take any photographs,” the committee wrote in its summary, citing an interview with White House chief photographer Shealah Craighead.
The panel also raised questions about whether Trump or his remaining allies pressured some aides not to communicate during their interviews with the committee.
___
Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Jill Colvin, Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.