Donald Trump should be barred from office, Capitol riot panel says in final report
Former President Donald Trump should be barred from ever holding office again, concluded the panel investigating the Capitol riot in its massive final report.
The 845-page report released by the House select committee late Thursday found that Trump inspired his followers to engage in the violent insurrection as he tried to remain president although he lost the 2020 election.
It recommends that Congress prohibit Trump from being in office again. The report cites the 14th Amendment, which does not allow individuals who take part in an ‘insurrection’ or give ‘aid and comfort to the enemies’ of the Constitution.
The report also concluded that Trump was the ‘central cause’ of the Capitol riot.
‘That evidence has led to an overriding and straight forward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,’ states the report. ‘None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.’
Another key finding was that Trump and his inner circle made ‘at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation’ against election officials or lawmakers in an effort to overturn key state election results.
Trump and his allies engaged in 68 meetings, connected or attempted phone calls or text messages and 125 social media posts in the pressure campaign, according to the report.
The ex-president ‘spearheaded outreach aimed at numerous officials in States he lost but that had GOP-led legislatures, including in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona’, the report states.
The committee, which is days away from dissolving, held its final meeting on Monday and issued four criminal referrals against Trump to the Justice Department. The charges it referred were: obstruction of an official Congress proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the US, knowingly and willfully making material false statements to the federal government and aiding an insurrection.
After 18 months and more than 1,000 interviews and a million papers, the committee has shared its findings with the Justice Department, which recently appointed special counsel Jack Smith.
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