In a difficult public send-off and another welcome
A special congressional commission that investigated the insubordination that led to the storming of the Capitol building issued a comprehensive and detailed report, which included compelling evidence and arguments for the trial of former President Donald Trump and some of his advisers on charges of committing crimes against the annulment of the results of the presidential election 2020
Days before the end of its mandate, 18 months after it was formed, the committee made it clear in its 154-page summary report, and in the text of its full 845-page report, that the first person responsible for the disobedience was Donald Trump, and said that ” the central cause of the events of January 6, 2021 was one man, former President Donald Trump, who had other followers. “None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him,” the report continued.
It appears that those who drafted the text of the summary report wanted it to serve as the first draft of the prosecution’s decision against Trump. An overview of the former president’s violation of the constitution and his apparent attempts (more than 200 times) to pressure election officials in some states to manipulate the results of the vote, and the formation of fake delegates to represent those states in the process of ratifying the election results, and his lies from on election night that he was the winner of the election, not President Biden, pretty well known.
However, the committee’s report and investigations, which included hundreds of witnesses, thousands of pages, documents and official communications, revealed new, detailed and surprising information about the scale of the vast conspiracy that Trump personally led to overturn the election results, including his attempt to deploy members of the National guards around the Capitol building, not to protect lawmakers, but to protect their supporters from rioters. Who stormed the building and placed the United States for the first time in its history on that dark day on the brink of a bloody coup that nearly destabilized the pillars of the country’s democratic system.
For these reasons, the committee recommended that the Justice Department consider prosecuting former President Trump and some of his associates on charges that include obstruction of Congress (confirming the election of a new president), aiding insurrection against the state (occupying the Capitol building), and fraud (large sums of money that Trump gathered under the pretext of resisting attempts to “steal” his elections). The committee also hopes that its investigations and recommendations for the prosecution of Trump will prevent him, along with other officials responsible for disobedience, from running for any official position, under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits anyone from engaging in disobedience or aiding the enemies of the United States. State to occupy any official position.
The vast majority of witnesses who appeared before the commission were Republicans, who held various positions in the Trump administration, or Republican officials in some states where the results were close to those who were under pressure from Trump and his advisers, or from some of them. who took part in the riot, who They said they took part in the break-in because Trump invited them.
Most of their testimonies confirmed that Trump contributed to the mobilization of the rebels, and that he refused to listen to the advice of some of his advisers who warned him of the possibility of violence that day and called on his supporters to stop the onslaught. and withdraw from the building. All former officials assured committee members that Trump had not contacted any security official, at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense or any other agency, to discuss how to stop the break-in. During the Capitol attack, Robert Gabriel, a Trump aide, wrote to another official, “I’m sure the president is enjoying what’s going on.”
The committee’s recommendations to the Ministry of Justice are not legally binding, but they are politically and symbolically significant and have become a significant document.
After Trump announced his candidacy for office, the Justice Department appointed a special investigator, Jack Smith, to oversee criminal investigations against the former president, including his role in the attack on the Capitol building. Since his appointment on November 22nd, Investigator Smith has issued subpoenas to election officials in 7 key states that have been targeted by Trump’s meddling and manipulation efforts, namely Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania .
Many human rights analysts and activists have praised the work of the Special Commission of Inquiry and its transparency, the professional manner in which it conducted its investigations and the hearings it organized, the creative use of the videotapes it collected for the raid and its reliance on the texts of communications that took place between many of those who were directly involved in the raid, including officials, security elements and insurgents, and his presentation of these tapes and transcripts of hearings that were watched by millions of Americans on television.
Despite the importance of focusing the commission’s energies and investigation on exposing and documenting Donald Trump’s central role in the process of disobeying and creating the “big lie” of election fraud, some lawyers and analysts wanted the commission to also focus on the complicity or involvement of many Republican lawmakers in Congress, particularly in the House of Representatives, conspiring to back and support Trump — even after the riots and attacks on the Capitol — in his attempts to undermine the election results. This is in addition to the involvement of a large number of Republican officials in states where Trump wanted to manipulate the election results.
What the various investigations have revealed, and what the Special Commission has confirmed very clearly, is that Trump would not have been able to create a dangerous movement of disobedience that threatens the democratic system if he had not enjoyed the support of an important and influential segment of the Republican Party. in Washington and in various states that were ready to turn a blind eye to his blatant violations of the Constitution. , and support him in his political ambitions that are inconsistent with the essence of democratic values, principles and institutions based on the constitution that all American presidents, including Trump himself, have sworn to uphold, protect and implement its provisions.
The committee’s report paints, in minute detail, a bleak and deeply troubling picture of how the Republican Party has mostly slid into a quagmire of autocracy and personality cults, and how Trump’s personality and Trump phenomenon have accelerated a slide that began before Trump’s candidacy, albeit less blatantly.
With thousands of extremists, racists and right-wing militia members responding to Trump’s call to gather in the heart of the US capital and attack the Capitol, 139 Republican members of the House of Representatives and 8 Republican members of the Senate voted to throw out the results of the 2020 election, hours after the attack on Capitol.
Committee investigations have shown that dozens of Republican members of the House of Representatives talked to former White House director Mark Meadows about ways to change the election results — even after the courts rejected Trump’s appeals of the election results — and dozens of local Republican officials agreed to participate in fake lists as delegates. .prominent voters, not those elected by the voters, to illegally validate Trump’s election.
To demonstrate the spread of Trump’s “big lie” about the election, the lie was accepted by more than 300 Republican candidates for various positions in the 2022 midterm elections. Although voters defeated some of the most prominent candidates running for governor in some states and for seats in the Senate and House of Representatives, about 170 Republican candidates for various positions who bought into Trump’s lies succeeded in recent elections, another indication of the depths Trump’s deception of American voters.
Trump’s reactions to the Special Committee’s report were furious and hysterical, and included insults against committee members, President Biden and special investigator Jack Smith, all of which reflected the depth of his concerns and the impact of his political isolation, especially after losing most of the prominent candidates who adopted and supported in the mid-term elections, and after the emergence of influential Republican voices in Congress, speaking publicly about the diminishing influence of Trump and his decline in importance among Republicans. That assessment is correct, but it does not mean that Trump’s exile from the American political process has been achieved. But the strong political condemnation formed by the Special Committee’s report points the way for Trump to be legally censured and disqualified from running for any political office, even if the Justice Department does not publicly appear to be on that path.
