Trump news: Rattled Trump lashes out as Jan 6 panel finishes investigation and tax return release looms

Publication of House committee’s Jan 6 report comes as information on former president’s tax returns released earlier in week

January 6 panel chair says Trump ‘broke the faith’ of US elections in final session

The House committee investigating the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot released its final report late on Thursday night, outlining why it has recommended Donald Trump and others face criminal charges over the insurrection.

Over 845 pages, the damning report details how the former president and his allies engaged in at least 200 acts attempting to overturn the 2020 election. The committee calls for him to never be allowed to hold office again.

“That evidence has led to an overriding and straightforward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” the report states.

“None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”

Among its other recommendations: swift passage of the Electoral Count Act; a series of disciplinary and criminal referrals; a whole of government strategy to counter violent extremism; and the reform of security arrangements and criminal statutes to include harsher penalties for threats to election workers and the peaceful transfer of power.

The publication of the report caps off another terrible week for Mr Trump that also included a vote by another House committee to release six years’ worth of his tax returns.

Key points

• January 6 report: Key findings from the House committee investigation
• Report recommends barring Trump from holding office again
• Pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro architect of fake electors plot, report says
• Trump lashes out with election fraud conspiracies
• McConnell says Trump’s influence is ‘diminshed'

[22 December 2022 23:30 · Oliver O'Connell]

Who pleaded the Fifth in their January 6 testimony?

Among them was longtime Mr Trump ally Roger Stone, right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, white supremacist Nick Fuentes, and the leaders of far-right groups the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.

Several Republican Party officials were also among them, including Nevada GOP chair Michael McDonald and Michigan Republican National Committeewoman Kathy Berden.

Rachel Sharp reports.

[23 December 2022 00:30 · Oliver O'Connell]

Ex-Trump aide told Jan 6 committee of Trumpworld-funded lawyer efforts to diminish her role

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the House January 6 committee that an attorney paid by former president Donald Trump’s political organisation took great pains to pressure into testifying in a way that was favourable to the ex-president and his allies, including 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.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington DC.

[23 December 2022 02:00 · Oliver O'Connell]

Informant warned FBI weeks before Jan 6 of impending violence from Trump ‘call to arms'

The FBI was warned as far back as mid-December 2020 that far-right groups were viewing Donald Trump’s tweets as a “call to arms” in the campaign to overturn the 2020 election, NBC News reported on Wednesday.

The new revelation comes in the form of an email from an FBI informant obtained by the news outlet. According to NBC, the confidential FBI source remains one that the bureau uses to stay informed on the far right in America, and in the weeks leading up to January 6 was actively sending hundreds of pages of reports to the agency.

John Bowden has the story.

[23 December 2022 02:59 · John Bowden]

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

The House January 6 committee has released its final report into the Capitol insurrection, the culmination of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

[23 December 2022 03:30 · Oliver O'Connell]

Mike Lindell cut off mid-sentence by his own attorney during interview

Conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell was interrupted by his lawyer during a live broadcast while speaking about “anomalies” in the 2022 Florida Governor’s race.

The My Pillow chief and staunch Trump supporter, who gained infamy for his long-running attempts to help overturn the 2020 presidential election results, was speaking about wanting to audit the Florida election on Tuesday in an appearance on his programme The Lindell Report.

Stuti Mishra reports.

[23 December 2022 04:00 · Sravasti Dasgupta]

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

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”.

John Bowden, Andrew Feinberg have the details:

[23 December 2022 04:30 · Sravasti Dasgupta]

Report identifies pro-Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro as architect of fake electors plot

The Jan 6 committee report has identified pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro as being the original architect of the legally dubious fake electors plan, reported CNN.

“The fake elector plan emerged from a series of legal memoranda written by an outside legal advisor to the Trump Campaign: Kenneth Chesebro,” the report said.

It added that Mr Chesebro sent a memo to then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani after a request from Trump campaign official Boris Epshteyn about a “‘President of the Senate’ strategy”.

The strategy wrongly asserted that the vice president could pick which presidential electors to count during the joint session of Congress on 6 January.

“President Trump in the days immediately before January 6th, Chesebro – an attorney based in Boston and New York recruited to assist the Trump Campaign as a volunteer legal advisor – was central to the creation of the plan,” the report says.

“Memos by Chesebro on November 18th, December 9th, and December 13th, as discussed below, laid the plan’s foundation.”

Capitol Riot Investigation (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

[23 December 2022 05:00 · Oliver O'Connell]

Trump wrote ‘shockingly gracious’ handover note to Biden, book says

Donald Trump spent his final days in the Oval Office claiming the election was rigged and skipped his successor’s inauguration, but wrote a “shockingly gracious” handover note to Joe Biden, according to a new book.

Shweta Sharma has the story.

[23 December 2022 05:30 · Sravasti Dasgupta]

Report recommends barring Trump from holding office again

The Jan 6 Committee report has recommended that former president Donald Trump be barred from holding office again.The recommendation is among the conclusions of the panel’s final report, reported CNN.

The panel refers to a section of the Constitution that states an individual who has taken an oath to support the US Constitution but has “engaged in an insurrection” or given “aid or comfort to the enemies of the Constitution” can be disqualified from office.

The former president and others have been referred by the committee to the Department of Justice for assisting or aiding an insurrection.

The report also calls on congressional committees of jurisdiction to create a “formal mechanism” for evaluating whether those individuals violate that section of the 14th Amendment should be barred from future federal or state office.

FILE - Former President Donald Trump announces he is running for president for the third time at Mar-a-Lago (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

[23 December 2022 06:00 · Sravasti Dasgupta]

Trump refused to act as riot unfolded, report says

The Jan 6 Committee report has claimed that former president Donald Trump refused to act as the riot unfolded on 6 January 2021.

“President Trump did not contact a single top national security official during the day. Not at the Pentagon, nor at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Capitol Police Department, or the DC Mayor’s office,” the committee was quoted as saying in its report by CNN.

“As Vice President Pence has confirmed, President Trump didn’t even try to reach his own Vice President to make sure that Pence was safe.”

(Reuters)