The congressional committee investigating Monday’s Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol completed a year and a half of work and found that former President Donald J. Trump and some of his aides violated federal laws, conspired against the United States and should be prosecuted.
At their last meeting, the bipartisan committee of nine House lawmakers released a 160-page summary of their findings, ending the most comprehensive investigation into the violence aimed at stopping Joseph R. Biden’s certification Jr. as the 46th president.
The panel voted 9 to 0 to accept the final report and urge the Justice Department to consider criminal charges against Trump and his allies in four separate jurisdictions.
Here are some takeaways:
The commission kept its focus on Trump.
The committee’s hour-long presentation focused almost exclusively on Mr. Trump, essentially ignoring findings about intelligence and security flaws at the Capitol before and during the attack. Nor did the committee dwell on the information it gathered about the rise of domestic extremism.
Attention to Mr. Trump was telegraphed for months when the commission produced its final report, using it primarily as a means of holding Mr. Trump accountable for his actions to prevent the orderly transition of power after a presidential election. As Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a Republican and vice chair of the panel, put it, “Every president in our history has defended this orderly transfer of authority, except one.”
In one place, the report laid out the facts about how Trump tried to stay in power.
The summary of the commission’s final report is a remarkable account of a president’s desperate attempt to stay in office after his 2020 election loss to Mr Biden.
While breaking new ground since the panel’s series of public hearings this summer, the report brings all the facts together in one place for the first time.
Understand the events on January 6
The report says that even those close to Mr. Trump “eventually admitted that they didn’t have enough factual evidence to change the election result, and they admitted that what they were trying to do was illegal.”
The report laid out step-by-step how Mr Trump tried to stay in power after losing the 2020 election: First, by lying about widespread fraud despite being told his claims were false; by staging false voter rolls in states won by Biden by pressuring state officials, the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election; and finally by rallying a mob of his supporters to march to the Capitol, where they engaged in bloody violence for hours while Mr. Trump did nothing to blow them off.
“That evidence has led to a decisive and clear conclusion: The central cause of January 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” the report states. “None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”
The commission revealed new details from two top advisers: Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway.
The commission revealed on Monday the investigative work it had done since the end of their previous hearings. That included the panel’s first interviews with two of the former president’s top advisers: Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway.
Ms. Hicks, who served as a senior adviser in the White House, said when she expressed concern to the former president about the actions on January 6 that affected Mr. Trump’s legacy, he responded that “no one will care about my legacy if i lose. So that doesn’t matter. All that matters is winning.”
The committee also disclosed testimony from Ms Conway, who described telling Mr Trump that January 6 was a “terrible day”. She recalled him replying, “No. People are upset. They are very upset.”
The events of January 6 hurt Trump, but did not knock him out of the fight for 2024.
The committee’s work over the past year has already helped to nullify Mr Trump’s political standing and his reputation as the nation’s 45th president. Ms. Cheney again said on Monday that Mr. Trump should never again “serve in any position of authority in our country. He is unfit for any office.”
And yet Mr. Trump has already announced that he is once again running for the presidency, hoping to reclaim the office he falsely claims was stolen from him. Despite a rocky campaign announcement and a swirl of potential criminal charges, Mr. Trump remains a central figure in the Republican Party, with strong support across the country. And he has endured setbacks before, both politically and legally.
The commission’s legacy is still an open question.
The legacy of the January 6 commission is now out of the hands of the panel and will most likely be determined by federal prosecutors in the coming months. It will be up to Jack Smith, the special counsel assigned to oversee the investigation into Mr. Trump’s actions, to determine whether the information sent by the committee, along with the Justice Department’s own material, , justifies the former president being charged with crimes.
That remains an open question. Members of the committee on Monday stood firm in their belief that Mr. Trump and those around him violated four statutes in planning and executing the attack on the Capitol. These are: obstructing or influencing an official procedure; conspiracy against the US government; making false statements to the government; and participate in rebellion against the government.
Prosecuting those or any other charges against Mr. Trump would be a historic attempt to hold the nation’s top official accountable for his actions. But it’s up to special counsel, and ultimately Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, to decide whether to move forward. Other Justice Department officials will have to decide whether to charge Trump’s aides, as the committee members requested.
Meanwhile, Republicans are already preparing to discredit the committee when they take control of the House in January. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who wants to be the speaker next year, has vowed to investigate the committee’s work and has demanded that staff and lawmakers keep the records for that purpose.
The commission has not been a political boon for many of its members.
The end of the committee on January 6 also marks the end of the careers of four of the nine members of the panel.
Two of them – Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, and Representative Stephanie Murphy, Democrat of Florida – decided not to run for re-election in 2022. Mr. Kinzinger faced fierce opposition within his own party because of his frequent criticism of Mr. Kinzinger. Trump and his decision to be part of the January 6 committee.
Two others — Ms. Cheney and Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia — lost their House seats in 2022. Ms. Cheney was defeated in her Wyoming primary campaign after drawing the ire of party officials and voters for her opposition to Mr. Trump and her determination to hold him accountable for January 6. Mrs. Luria was defeated in the Virginia general election.
All four have said they have no regrets about being on the committee. But it is unlikely to serve as a political springboard for many of its members.