WASHINGTON (AP) — An 800-page report to be released Thursday by House investigators will conclude that then-President Donald Trump criminally conspired to overturn his 2020 election defeat and “provoked his supporters to violence” on Capitol Hill with widespread false claims. dissemination. electoral fraud.
The resulting Jan. 6, 2021, insurgency by Trump supporters threatened democracy with “appalling” law enforcement brutality and “endangered the lives of U.S. lawmakers,” according to the report’s executive summary.
“The central cause on January 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, who was followed by many others,” said the commission’s January 6 report, to be released in full on Thursday. “None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”
Ahead of the report’s release, the commission released 34 transcripts of 1,000 interviews conducted over the past 18 months on Wednesday night. Most of those released are witnesses who invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination.
The eight chapters of the report’s findings will largely reflect nine hearings this year that presented 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 lobbying of state officials, the Justice Department, members of Congress and his own vice president to swing 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 the presidential election victory of Democrat Joe Biden. And how he told them to “fight like hell” in a huge rally outside the White House that morning and then did nothing to stop the violence as they beat the police, stormed the Capitol and sent lawmakers into race to save lives.
It was a “multi-part conspiracy,” the committee concluded.
The massive and damning report comes as Trump is running for president again and also faces multiple federal investigations, including investigations into his role in the insurgency and the presence of classified documents at his Florida estate. A House committee is expected to release his tax returns in the coming days, documents he has struggled for years to keep private. And he was blamed by Republicans for a worse-than-expected performance in the midterm elections, leaving him in his most politically vulnerable state since winning the 2016 election.
It’s also the culmination of a four-year Democratic House majority that has spent much of its time and energy investigating Trump and hands power to Republicans in two weeks. Democrats have twice impeached Trump — both times acquitted by the Senate — and investigated his finances, business, foreign ties and family.
But the investigation on Jan. 6 was the most personal for lawmakers, most of whom were inside the Capitol building when Trump supporters stormed the building and disrupted the certification of Biden’s victory.
Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool photo via AP, file
While the lasting impact of the investigation remains to be seen — most Republicans remained loyal to the former president — the committee’s hearings were watched by tens of millions of people over the summer. And 44 percent of voters in November’s midterm elections said the future of democracy was their top concern at the polls, according to AP VoteCast, a national poll of the electorate.
“This committee is nearing the end of its mandate, but as a country we remain in strange and uncharted waters,” the committee’s chairman, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said during Monday’s meeting to adopt the report and recommend sanctions against Atu . . “I have never seen an American president violently try to block the transfer of power. I think almost two years later, this is still a moment of reflection and reckoning.”
Members of the “showdown” are hoping for criminal charges against Trump and key allies. But only the Justice Department has the power to prosecute, so the grand jury sent notices recommending the department investigate the former president on four counts, including aiding and abetting an insurrection.
Although its main points are known, the January 6 report will provide new details from the hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents collected by the commission. Transcripts and some videos are also expected to be released in the next couple of weeks. Republicans will take control of the House on Jan. 3, when the panel is dissolved.
“I guarantee you there will be 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 function. Each invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The statement also includes testimony from witnesses associated with extremist groups involved in pre-attack planning. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy last month for his role in the planning, and former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio both spoke to the committee. Tarrio and four other members of the extremist group are on trial this month on similar charges.
The report’s summary details how Trump refused to accept the legal result of the 2020 election and plotted to reverse his defeat. Trump pressured state lawmakers to hold votes to invalidate Biden voters, tried to “bribe the U.S. Department of Justice” by urging department officials to make false statements about the election, and personally repeatedly tried to- He convinces Vice President Mike Pence to overthrow democracy with unprecedented democracy. objections to a joint session of Congress, says.
Trump sought to discredit the report, accusing committee members of being “dogs and scumbags” while continuing to falsely challenge the 2020 defeat.
In response to the commission’s criminal complaints, Trump said that “these people don’t understand that when they come after me, freedom-loving people rally around me. It strengthens me.”
The report will provide minute-by-minute details of what Trump did — and didn’t do — for nearly three hours as his supporters beat police and stormed the Capitol. Trump infuriated the crowd at that morning’s rally and then did nothing to stop his supporters for several hours as he watched the violence unfold on television inside the White House and ignored pleas from aides to stop it.
Lawmakers point to evidence of Trump’s actions they still don’t have since then, including call logs, entries in the official daily log or calls to any security officials.
“President Trump did not contact any senior national security officials during the day. Not in the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Capitol Police Department or the mayor’s office in Washington DC,” the report said.
There are also no official photos of the president during those hours.
“President Trump apparently ordered the White House photographer not to take any photos,” the panel wrote in its summary, citing an interview with chief White House photographer Shealah Craighead.
The panel also raised questions that some advisers were pressured by Trump or his remaining allies not to be present during their discussions with the committee.
Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, Jill Colvin, Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the Capitol uprising at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.
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