January 6 Committee Brings the Hammer Down on Donald Trump - Horowitz

January 6 Committee Brings the Hammer Down on Donald Trump - Horowitz

 

Buttressed by the mountain of evidence it gathered from the more than 1,000 witnesses it interviewed, the House select committee on January 6th brought the hammer down on Donald Trump in its’ final hearing, which was held yesterday afternoon, unanimously referring the former president to the US Department of Justice for criminal prosecution for 4 separate crimes: inciting, assisting or aiding and comforting an insurrection: conspiracy to defraud the United States: obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress: and conspiracy to make a false statement.

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It is the case that the referrals are recommendations and do not require the Justice Department to take any action. It is also true that spurred by the work of the select committee, the Justice Department investigation into the former president’s criminal culpability for January 6 is already far along.  Still, these sweeping criminal referrals, backed up by testimony by many of Trump’s own associates as presented compellingly in the televised hearings and summed up cogently in the more than 100-page executive summary of the committee’s final report that was released yesterday in conjunction with the hearing, will continue to drive home in the court of public opinion Trump’s undeniable responsibility for January 6 and the events leading up to it as well as his manifest unfitness to hold the office of president.

Taken together, the 17 findings outlined in the executive summary provide a step-by-step explanation of Mr. Trump’s unprecedented refusal to accept the peaceful transfer of power, despite knowing that his claims of widespread voter fraud were false, and the multi-level and illegal plot he oversaw to nullify the results of the election, clinging to power by any means possible.  As Representative Liz Cheney(R-WY) remarked in her opening statement at yesterday’s committee hearing, “Every president in our history has defended this orderly transfer of authority, except one.”
 

Perhaps the most damaging of the 17 findings -- due to the fact that most of us watched the events it encapsulates unfold in real time on that fateful day-- is the following:  “Knowing that violence was underway at the Capitol, and despite his duty to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed, Donald Trump refused repeated requests over a multiple hour period that he instruct his violent supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol, and instead watched the violent attack unfold on television. This failure to act perpetuated the violence at the Capitol and obstructed Congress’s proceeding to count electoral votes”
 
There were a few new revelations in yesterday’s hearing. The committee showed  Hope Hicks testifying that in the days before January 6, advisors attempted to get Donald Trump to urge people planning to come to the rally to protest peacefully and he refused.  It also reported that there’s now documentation of the former president and people close to him dangling jobs and other inducements in front of people about to testify in front of the committee. 
 
All in all, however, it was mainly a summing-up of the powerful case the committee has built against the former president over its ten televised hearings. Video clips of former attorney general William Barr telling the committee that he told Trump the voter fraud allegations were b.s. and the havoc wrought at the capitol, among others that the committee showed again yesterday, still pack an evocative punch.
 

With its final hearing completed and the release of the whole final report slated for tomorrow, the substantial new evidence of Mr. Trump’s and some of his associates’ criminal wrongdoing uncovered by the committee will now all be in the capable hands of special prosecutor Jack Smith.
 
Of most importance, however, this committee has performed a highly valuable public education service, outlining to the American public the true threat to our democracy that January 6th and the events leading up to it represented and the continuing threat that the advancement of the “Big Lie” poses. In doing so, it overcame Republican attempts to discredit its efforts, creating the impression of bi-partisan heft mainly through the prominent participation of two Republican members of Congress, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.  Its excellent work was a significant contributing factor to the nearly universal rejection of election deniers in battleground races throughout the nation in the mid-terms.  It is work that will stand the test of time, serving as an instructive cautionary tale and the foundation for the remaining urgent task of fixing what ails our democracy.