The House special committee investigating the January 6, 2021, assault on Capitol Hill unanimously approved Monday to request the indictment of former President Donald Trump on three felonies: inciting or aiding an insurrection, obstruction of an official congressional proceeding, conspiracy to deceive the State, and conspiracy to give false testimony.
The executive summary of the commission’s report read on Monday describes in detail how Trump tried to bend, pressure or cajole anyone who would not bend to his attempt to prevent his defeat in the presidential election despite knowing that many of these maneuvers were illegal, so they consider that he is ultimately responsible for the «insurrection» with his lies to the public.
Trump attempted to change the outcome through the intervention of public officials in key states, Justice Department officials, state legislators and other officials.
«He intentionally disseminated false accusations of fraud» to prevent Joe Biden’s victory. «These false claims provoked his supporters to use violence on Jan. 6,» the commission notes.
Trump’s speech and stance were «premeditated» because he knew the fraud allegations were false despite which he did not mind continuing to spread them. «President Trump’s decision to falsely declare his election night victory and call for the recount to be illegally stopped was not spontaneous. It was premeditated,» the text stresses.
CALLS FOR INVESTIGATION OF REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN In addition, the report calls for the House Ethics Committee to investigate several Republican congressmen who refused to cooperate with the investigation. Among them are Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy, as well as Congressmen Jim Jordan, Scott Perry and Andy Biggs, who could be sanctioned.
«Leaving them unscathed would call into question the competence of Congress to investigate in support of its authority to legislate and insinuate that members of Congress can disdain prescriptive legal obligations for ordinary citizens,» he has warned.
The commission has voted in a final public session on whether to file criminal charges based on a lengthy investigation. However, the commission’s final report will not be released until next Wednesday.
The commission is made up of eight members of the House of Representatives — six of them Democrats — and is investigating the assault on Capitol Hill by Trump supporters during the protocol confirmation of Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 election.
The request will now move to the Justice Department, which is also investigating Trump in parallel for his involvement in those incidents, which resulted in the deaths of five people. Four more committed suicide after the events.
The approval of this recommendation has no concrete judicial effects, but it is a historic milestone because it is the first time that Congress has requested the indictment of a former president.
REACTIONS Trump himself has taken more than an hour to react through a message on his social network, Truth Social, in a message in which he has charged against the vice president of the investigative committee, Republican Liz Cheney.
«But Liz Chaney (sic) lost by a record 40 points!» he blurted out in reference to her defeat in the Republican primary in August by a Trump-backed candidate, Harriet Hageman, by 37.4 points.
The other messages published by Trump in the last hours have nothing to do with the investigation commission, but with the possible repeal of Title 42, one of the bases of his immigration policy, and with news about Twitter’s content management during the 2020 presidential election campaign.
On Sunday Trump criticized the commission for being «very partisan» and charged that its members were «illegally leaking» classified information. «How much longer are Republicans and American patriots in general going to put up with this continuing to happen?» he asked.
Also after the vote, the White House has highlighted the «important bipartisan work» of the commission — made up of six Democrats and two Republicans considered anti-Trump — but declined to delve further into the facts.
«We have been very clear from the beginning and have said that what happened on January 6 was the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War and the president has been very clear: our democracy remains under threat,» said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean. «We all have to protect it,» she added.
For his part, the chairman of the commission, Bennie Thompson, said he is «convinced» that Trump will be impeached with the help of the evidence gathered by the commission of inquiry. «The commission has studied it a lot and in depth and from my position we could not do anything but ask for the imputation,» Thompson said in statements to CNN.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
