Former US President Donald Trump is responsible for the riot on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021 and should be barred from holding office, a Democrat-dominated committee has recommended in its final report of the events.
Trump, who in November announced his intention to run for president in 2024, broke his oath to protect the US Constitution, the committee said. Thus he “can appropriately be disqualified and barred from holding government office – whether federal or state, civilian or military,” unless two thirds of Congress remove the prohibition.
The 845-page report was released on Thursday. The select committee also published on Wednesday and Thursday transcripts of testimonies made to it by witnesses. The committee worked on this project for 18 months before presenting its findings, although a shorter 154-page summary was made available on Monday.
The lawmakers put squarely on Trump the primary blame for the violence at the Capitol Hill, which happened after his supporters gathered in front of the federal legislature building to protest Joe Biden’s election as the new US president. The demonstrators breached the building, but ultimately failed to stop the outcome of the 2020 election from being formally acknowledged by then-vice president Mike Pence and the US Congress.
One protester was killed by the police inside the building, while multiple demonstrators and officers were injured in the chaos. There were several deaths of officers amid the riot, though none was directly linked to actions of the protesters.
On Monday, the committee recommended that federal prosecutors charged Trump for his alleged crimes related to the riot. The former US leader dismissed this as a partisan “witch hunt” and doubled down on his claims that the 2020 election was mired by fraud.
Democrats “are out to keep me from running for president because they know I’ll win,” Trump claimed in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Trump was impeached twice by the House during his term as president, including over the Capitol riot, as he was about to step down. Both times the Senate refused to convict him.