Jan. 6 report’s main goal: prevent Trump’s return

Opinion

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This article was published 01/01/2023 (722 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The release of the final report of the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol brought a fitting close to a year in which American politics descended to new depths of divisiveness and toxicity.

Neither the 800-plus-page report, nor the committee’s accompanying referral of Donald Trump for criminal prosecution on four counts — including obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government, making knowingly and wilfully materially false statements to the federal government, and inciting or assisting an insurrection — guarantees the former president will be formally held to account for his role in one of the darkest days in American history.

The decision whether to proceed with criminal charges against Mr. Trump now lies with the U.S. justice department. But a courtroom conviction of the man who tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” and then stood idly by for several hours as rioters defiled the seat of American legislative power during the execution of arguably its most solemnly significant duty was not and is not the primary goal of the Jan. 6 committee.

Rather, topping the committee’s agenda was guaranteeing two things never again happen: an insurrection that seeks to upset the peaceful transfer of power, and, perhaps even more so, an ascendancy to the presidency by Donald J. Trump.

“Our country has come too far to allow a defeated president to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence, and… opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” committee chairman Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) said in the report’s introduction.

Among the report’s 11 recommendations are a reform of the Electoral Count Act to make it clear the U.S. vice-president cannot reject electoral slates submitted by individual states — something Mr. Trump pressured then-vice president Mike Pence to do — and an intensification of federal law-enforcement agencies’ monitoring of extremist-group activity involving the likes of white supremacists and violent anti-government factions.

Specifically noted in the recommendations is the power of the 14th Amendment to bar from holding public office anyone who “engaged in an insurrection” or gave “aid and comfort to the enemies of the Constitution.”

And therein lies the real intention of the report that sprang from the committee’s 18 months of work, which included interviews with more than 1,000 witnesses and the acquisition of millions of pages of documents: to do everything in the committee’s power to eliminate any possibility Mr. Trump will regain the U.S. presidency.

The referrals to the justice department are non-binding, even if the evidence that underpins them seems beyond dispute. And the report’s recommendations, while emphatic, could turn out to be largely symbolic as the committee disbands in advance of Republicans taking over control of the House of Representatives later this month in the aftermath of November’s midterm elections.

GOP officials have indicated they intend to closely scrutinize the committee’s work, which is a nice way of saying the Republican-led House will attempt to dismiss and dismantle everything the Jan. 6 committee assembled.

Regardless of how it’s portrayed by the GOP majority in weeks to come, the committee has fully laid bare the systematic and corrupt manner in which Mr. Trump and his underlings sought to disrupt democratic processes in order to maintain their grip on power after losing the 2020 election.

Only if Mr. Trump does not succeed in his quest to re-inhabit the White House can the committee consider its mission fully accomplished.