January 6 committee releases final report on Trump-fuelled Capitol riot

Report clocks in at 845 pages

Members of the January 6 committee released their-long awaited final report late Thursday evening.

The more than 800-page document was clearly focused primarily on the actions and rhetoric of former President Donald Trump. Several chapters were titled with now-infamous quotes from the ex-president, including his prediction that the demonstrations in Washington would be “wild”.

Mr Trump was referred by the committee to the Justice Department on four separate criminal counts, including the panel’s most serious allegation: Giving aid or comfort to an insurrection. Several members of his legal team were also named in the referrals for three other counts.

Those included obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and making a false statement to the United States government.

None of the committee’s referrals will have a direct effect, as the Justice Department independently makes its own determinations whether individuals will face criminal charges. However, the committee is known to be cooperating extensively with both the DoJ as well as prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, by turning over the extensive evidence and testimony gathered during their extensive investigation. Both entities are running their own investigations with the potential for criminal charges targeting Mr Trump and his legal team.

Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., speaks as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds its final meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Dec. 19, 2022. Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., left. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The committee’s report notably does not touch on issues of law enforcement preparedness prior to the attack; that issue instead was addressed by Republican members who were named to the committee and subsequently refused to participate after two of their number were refused membership due to being potential witnesses.In addition to the criminal referrals issued by the committee, the lawmakers also issued several referrals of Republican members of Congress to the House Ethics Committee for dodging their subpoenas, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

The committee’s report, which comes after 18 months of investigative work into the violent attack on Congress, clocked in at 845 pages. The report’s executive summary was released earlier this week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is stepping down from Democratic leadership in the next Congress after Republicans take control, praised the select committee’s work and commitment to investigating the attack.

“The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack has succeeded in bringing clarity and demonstrating with painstaking detail the fragility of our Democracy,” Ms Pelosi said in a foreword to the report. “Above all, the work of the Select Committee underscores that our democratic institutions are only as strong as the com- mitment of those who are entrusted with their care. As the Select Committee concludes its work, their words must 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.”

Violent protesters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. The platform Gab launched in 2016 and now claims to have 15 million monthly visitors, though that number could not be independently verified. The service says it saw a huge jump in signups following the January 6 riot, which prompted Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to crack down on Trump and others who they said had incited violence. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File) (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The release of the panel’s final report comes just hours after committee members released previously unseen evidence showing the lengths members of Mr Trump’s orbit went to in order to dissuade Cassidy Hutchinson, a 26-year-old former White House aide, from testifying truthfully about the events before, during and after the riotous attack on the Capitol.

Ms Hutchinson, who was a top aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows from mid-2020 to the end of Mr Trump’s term in 2021, testified that an attorney who represented her in her first appearances before the panel, Stefan Passantino, pressured her into testifying in a way that was favourable to the ex-president and his allies by pushing her to say she didn’t recall things that might have been damaging to Mr Trump, working to find her employment while her testimony was being scheduled, and even relaying the substance of her testimony to the former president himself.

She also said Mr Passantino — who served as a top ethics official in the Trump-era White House Counsel’s Office — told her that the goal of her appearances before the panel was to make it seem as if she had been merely a “secretary” despite her former status as a highly-placed senior aide to Mark Meadows, Mr Trump’s final White House chief of staff.The transcript of Ms Hutchinson’s 14 September appearance before the committee deals largely with the period she was represented by Mr Passantino, and the Trumpworld attorney’s efforts to keep her in the fold.That pressure against Ms Hutchinson took numerous forms, including by dangling job offers at Trump-linked entities.

She told the panel that her lawyer had promised that she would be “taken care of” and not to worry about finding work herself.In a conversation she recounted as having taken place on 1 March, Mr Passantino told her: “We’re gonna get you a really good job in Trump world” and discouraged her from applying to jobs at non-political entities outside the ex-president’s orbit.“You don’t need to apply other places. We’re gonna get you taken care of. We want to keep you in the family,” he said, according to Ms Hutchinson.

The January 6 committee held a series of dramatic hearings over the summer, detialing Mr Trump’s relentless efforts to overturn the 2020 election and disregard for the violence as it unfolded on Capitol Hill. The committee revealed that Mr Trump watched the chaos on television from the White House as the peaceful transition of power was shattered.

The committee’s report also indicated that Mr Trump wished to join his supporters at the Capitol. In one dramatic moment from the committee’s public hearings, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson claimed that Mr Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent in his presidential limo when told he couldn’t travel to the Capitol.

“The committee’s principal concern was that the president actually intended to participate personally in the January 6th efforts at the Capitol, leading the attempt to overturn the election either from inside the House chamber, from a stage outside the Capitol, or otherwise,” the members wrote in the report’s executive summary, which was released earlier this week.