Donald Trump ‘led conspiracy to subvert democracy’
Donald Trump led a ‘multipart conspiracy’ to overturn the result of the 2020 election, the House committee investigating the January 6 riot has said.
Donald Trump led a “multipart conspiracy” to subvert American democracy and overturn the result of the 2020 election, the House committee investigating the January 6 riot has said.
In its final report, it recommended that the former president never hold office again.
The 845-page document was released on Thursday after an 18-month investigation in which the committee interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, obtained more than a million documents and held ten public hearings.
Compelling evidence was laid out by the panel of a sprawling criminal conspiracy by Trump to defy the will of the American public and cling on to power.
In one of the most damning indictments of a US president in the nation’s history, it laid the blame for Trump supporters storming the US Capitol last year squarely at Trump’s feet.
“The central cause of January 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed,” the committee said. “None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.”
Despite knowing he had lost the election, Trump ignored the advice of White House advisers who urged him to concede defeat. Instead, he launched an illegal pressure campaign to overturn the result in battleground states, the committee said.
When that failed, the president summoned his supporters to Washington, whipped up by his false claims of election fraud, before inciting the riot that followed, urging them to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell”.
As the violence mounted and the Capitol was breached, Trump rejected pleas for him to call off his supporters, watching the attack for hours on TV.
“As the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates, President Trump specifically and repeatedly refused to do so - for multiple hours - while the mayhem ensued,” the report said.
The committee revealed that at 2.49pm on January 6, with the Capitol under siege, one White House aide texted: “Potus im [sic] sure is loving this.”
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