Jan. 6 Panel Blasts Trump for Inciting Capitol Assault in Report

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol delivered a scathing report that blamed “one man,” former President Donald Trump, for inciting violence to try and hold onto power.

The 814-page report concludes a 1 1/2-year probe that detailed Trump’s behind-the-scenes fury and his efforts to pressure state officials and the Justice Department to overturn the election.

Donald Trump displayed on a screen during a hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Dec. 19.

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed,” the report asserts in its executive summary, placing the mob invasion of the Capitol within “a multi-part plan to overturn the 2020 Presidential election.”

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The panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans concluded its work Monday with the first-ever congressional criminal referral against a former president, urging that Trump be charged with four offenses including insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the US and obstructing a congressional proceeding.

The committee said Congress should establish a mechanism to formally bar Trump and others identified in the report from holding any government or military office, citing a provision in the 14th amendment that disqualifies those involved in an insurrection from such posts.

The findings add to the legal and political troubles plaguing Trump’s 2024 re-election bid, which he announced last month. Another House committee decided Tuesday to release six years of Trump’s tax returns that he has long fought to keep private.

The committee released only a summary of its report on Monday. The full, digital report was posted at 9:45 p.m. Thursday.

While much of the narrative will be familiar to the millions of viewers who watched the committee’s televised hearings, there were new and startling details, such as Trump’s desire to go to the Capitol while it was certifying Joe Biden’s victory.

“One witness account suggests that President Trump even wished to participate in the electoral vote count from the House floor, standing with Republican Congressmen, perhaps in an effort to apply further pressure to Vice President Mike Pence and others,” according to the report.

Mike Pence displayed on a screen during a hearing on Dec. 19.

Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, ultimately refused to go along with Trump’s demand that he reject the electoral count.

The report features associates disparaging Trump and blaming him for the violence on Jan. 6. Hope Hicks, one of Trump’s closest and longest-serving aides, texted a colleague that she had suggested several times in the days leading up to the attack that Trump publicly state that Jan. 6 must remain peaceful and he refused, according to the report.

“We all look like domestic terrorists now,” Hicks texted Julie Radford, chief of staff to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, during the riot, according to the report. Regarding a Trump tweet during the attack that Pence didn’t have the courage to overturn the election – prompting chants of “hang Mike Pence” — Hicks texted a colleague that evening, “Attacking the VP? Wtf is wrong with him,” the report said.

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The chapters of the report expand on the narrative the committee laid out in nine hearings this year with an aim of setting a record for history and potential prosecution of Trump and several associates. Investigators for the panel interviewed more than a thousand witnesses and went over millions of pages of documents.

Justice Department

The report detailed how Trump’s effort to overturn the election result included significant pressure on the Justice Department to investigate bogus claims of voter fraud. Officials detailed in testimony how they would meet with Trump and present him with evidence to debunk his conspiracy theories, only to find out later that Trump was still repeating the false information.

“The president did not really care what facts had been uncovered by the Department of Justice,” according to the report.

The report described the notorious Jan. 2, 2021, call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump urged him to “find 11,780” votes, as “one element of a larger and more comprehensive effort — much of it unseen by and unknown to the general public — to overturn the votes cast by millions of American citizens across several states.”

The report estimated there were at least 200 apparent efforts by Trump and his inner circle to publicly or privately try to convince state or local officials to overturn election results in battleground states. The Trump campaign tried to contact almost 200 state legislators to get support for state-level action, according to the report, and highlighted a previously-reported private briefing on Jan. 2, 2021, between Trump, other allies, and hundreds of lawmakers.

One Michigan state lawmaker, House Speaker Lee Chatfield, told the committee he received five to 10 calls from Trump after the election, typically to discuss voter fraud. Trump would later send a tweet urging his supporters to contact Chatfield and another state lawmaker, mistakenly including the number of a private citizen.

State Pressure

A top Pennsylvania lawmaker at the time, Jake Corman, said he got a call from Trump shortly after Thanksgiving asking for help. Corman said that when he told Trump he couldn’t do what the president wanted, Trump replied, “I’m not sure your attorneys are very good.”

Eight pages of the report catalogued the harassment and danger faced by election officials and politicians in battleground states, some of whom were specifically identified by Trump and other high-profile allies with large followings.

One plan was to convince states to submit alternative electors, rather than the ones committed to Biden. The plan involved former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, the committee said, as well as Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, various members of Congress and GOP leaders in seven States — “some of whom did not know exactly what they were being asked to do.”

But, the report concludes, “President Trump oversaw it himself.”

Trump’s post-election fundraising, which raised a staggering $250 million, also came under scrutiny, including pitches used to get small-dollar donors to contribute.

The report details the changing justifications used for the fundraising, from “stopping the steal” to ensuring only legal votes are counted. While Trump’s political operatives argued over the wording of his solicitations, the money was diverted to Save America, a leadership PAC that, by law, could only spend $5,000 challenging the result of the election.

‘Witch Hunt’

Trump said in a post on his social media platform after the report was released Thursday that the “highly partisan Unselect Committee” purposely failed to mention his disputed claim that Pelosi was to blame for not calling out the National Guard on Jan. 6, or that Trump used the words “peacefully and patriotically” in his speech before the attack urging his supporters to march to the Capitol.

“WITCH HUNT!” Trump said.

In fact, security responsibilities at the time were shared with Republicans who had control of the Senate.

Republican Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the panel’s vice chair who lost her seat after being targeted by Trump for defeat, said in her foreword to the report that she is most disappointed in fellow conservatives who stood against the threats of communism and Islamic terrorism but decided to appease Trump or “keep their heads down” — and continue to do so.

“Part of the tragedy of January 6th is the conduct of those who knew that what happened was profoundly wrong, but nevertheless tried to downplay it, minimize it or defend those responsible,” Cheney said. “That effort continues every day.”

(Updates with details from report throughout)

--With assistance from Bill Allison, Ryan Teague Beckwith, Kaustuv Basu, Erik Larson and Mark Niquette.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Mike Dorning in Washington at mdorning@bloomberg.net;
Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net;
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net;
Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net

Joe Schneider

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