The January 6th Report summary

This story involves a lot of people. But at the center of it is one man, without whom none of this would have happened. The report is very clear on this: the cause of these events was Donald Trump.

So let’s start with the election itself – which, in one respect at least, actually went as predicted. For whatever reason, it’s usually the case that Republican voters tend to vote in person while Democrats are a lot more likely to use other legitimate methods like postal votes. And the results of those votes take longer to be counted.

Trump’s big idea wasn’t simply that Pence would overturn the vote count. He and a few members of his team went further: they actually made documents certifying Trump victories in seven states, including Michigan and Wisconsin, that were won by Biden.

In full knowledge that faking electoral slates was illegal, the team prepared the documents, acquired a series of signatures from fake electors, and sent them to places including the National Archives and Mike Pence’s office. Pence, they thought, would simply certify the fake documents, not the real ones, on January 6.

“Be there, will be wild!” – that’s what the president tweeted to his followers in the early hours of December 19, 2020. He kept on after that, too – more than a dozen times.

As the committee discovered, his supporters took this instruction to heart.

The committee’s report isn’t simply an account of what happened in the run-up to, and on, January 6. It also considers the causes – or rather, the cause. The report is very clear that Donald Trump himself was the reason the whole episode took place.

Specifically, the report refers the case to the Department of Justice Special Committee, which could formally charge him, as well as the House Ethics Committee.

The report was put together by nine members of the House of Representatives, who created a uniquely thorough and forensic account of what happened on that historic day. Their findings confirmed that Donald Trump, the outgoing president, was the root cause of the attack on the Capitol, and the committee suggested that he broke numerous laws in the process. In order to make sure this never happens again, it also recommended, he should be brought to justice.