Inquiry report into Trump's role in the storming of the Capitol: Script for a coup d'état

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End point of a calculated strategy: storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021

Photo: brent stirton/Getty Images

The print version hardly fits under a Christmas tree.

845 pages with footnotes, almost 300 pages longer than the 9/11 report: The final report of the Congressional Committee on the US Capitol storm lands on Friday night, 28 hours before Christmas Eve, like a lump of coal in Donald Trump's gift sock.

Just in time for its forced dissolution by the new Republican majority, the body describes the attempted coup in devastating detail - as a complex, "multi-stage" attempt to annul the 2020 elections and block the peaceful transfer of power.

"The central cause of January 6 was one man," the report concludes, "former President Donald Trump."

The committee has heard more than 1,000 witnesses over the past 18 months, 87 of whom have appeared at the public hearings.

The report interweaves their testimonies with thousands of documents, emails, phone calls and text messages into a crime-ready chronology - and a roadmap for indictments against Trump and his henchmen.

The seven Democrats and two Republicans on the panel made recommendations to the US Department of Justice, known as

.

The ministry is investigating the events separately and has appointed a special investigator.

Trump could be accused of four specific charges:

• obstruction of an official process;

• conspiracy to defraud the US;

• conspiracy to false testimony;

• incitement to a popular uprising.

The events described in the report are the script of an attempted coup d'etat.

Read the full original report here.

Here are the key takeaways:

1. The »Big Lie«

Trump knew he had lost the election.

His advisors warned him early on that the first positive numbers on election night were deceptive, as Joe Biden would later overtake him with the counting of postal votes.

That was then confirmed.

Allegations of widespread voter fraud were also quickly refuted - by the White House, by Trump's inner circle, by his lawyers, by the Justice Department.

'Stop it.

We won.

Fuck you."

Roger Stone, Trump adviser

But Trump's ego was too big to accept that: "I don't want people to know that we lost." He therefore deliberately spread the lie about election fraud "to support his plan to overturn the election ' the committee said.

"This is a hoax on the American people," Trump said on election night.

"We won this election." He repeated this

again and again for weeks, defying all the realities that led to the violence on January 6th.

According to the report, there was a calculated strategy behind it.

Trump adviser Steve Bannon had already announced in a small circle in October 2020: “He will announce victory.

But that doesn't mean he's a winner.

He'll just say he's a winner." In a video shown by the committee and quoted in the report, Trump vassal Roger Stone issued the language two days before the election: "Shut up, out.

We won.

You are wrong.

Fuck you."

Others distanced themselves from it internally, including Trump's campaign chief Bill Stepien, fearing for his "good reputation."

Stepien even locked his office while he was away to prevent Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, one of the main operators of the

, from sneaking in there (which he actually tried).

Giuliani is now at risk of losing his license to practice law over his involvement.

2. The conspiracy of the bureaucrats

At the same time, Trump instigated a branching conspiracy within the administration to sabotage the final legalization of the election by Congress on January 6, 2021.

This conspiratorial effort ran on several levels.

"The central element" was Vice President Mike Pence, who chaired the parliamentary session - a purely ceremonial function.

But as early as late 2020, attorney John Eastman concocted an “illegal” theory that Pence should reject the results of the key states.

The official White House legal team described this conspiracy internally as "completely insane."

Prosecutor Eric Herschmann advised Eastman, "Get a damn criminal defense attorney, you're going to need him."

"Get a damn criminal defense attorney, you're going to need him."

Eric Herschmann, government attorney

Trump urged Pence "in a series of meetings and phone calls" to cancel votes from the states in question.

The last phone call was on the morning of January 6th.

Trump called Pence a "pussy" and a "wimp" for refusing.

At the same time, Trump tried to use the Justice Department for his purposes.

He was assisted by his chief of staff Mark Meadows and Republican Congressman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.

Attorney General Bill Barr resigned in December 2020.

So Trump instructed Acting Secretary Jeff Rosen and his Deputy Richard Donoghue: "Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me."

When Trump encountered resistance from them too, he wanted to appoint Jeffrey Clark, a civil servant under his command, as deputy minister so that he could contest the election results.

Only the threat that "the entire head of the ministry" would then resign as a body dissuaded him.

Another flank was Trump's pressure on Republican politicians in the states.

Most notably Rusty Bowers, the Arizona House Speaker, and Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of the Interior, whom he instructed over the phone to "find 11,780 votes" to close the gap there.

Both refused.

Trump and Giuliani also slandered private individuals, putting them at risk.

Giuliani claimed two black women poll workers exchanged a USB stick of voters "like vials of heroin."

In truth, it was a menthol candy.

Other Republicans were more compliant than Bowers and Raffensperger.

For example, fake voter rolls were sent to Congress and the National Archives for five states -- a plan "trump-supervised," the committee said.

Overall, between the elections on November 3, 2020 and the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump and his inner circle tried to overturn the election results in the states with "at least 200" individual actions.

3. Breach of duty

The investigators' report also shows many details, some of them new, about Trump's behavior on January 6th.

Trump, who was about to address a crowd of supporters outside the White House that day, already knew from security agency reports that many of the protesters who had come to Washington were armed.

Arrests had already been made in the morning, and some men were picked up with guns.

There was a security checkpoint in front of the stage for Trump's speech, and the Secret Service confiscated "242 cans of pepper spray, 269 knives, 18 brass knuckles, 18 electric shock devices, six protective vests, three gas masks and 30 batons" from Trump supporters.

A number of other weapons remained in the crowd because Trump fans did not want to go through the security checkpoint.

It must have been clear to Trump by then that many of his people posed a threat to public safety.

But instead of canceling the performance or calming the crowd, he encouraged his fans to march to the Capitol to protest the authentication of Biden's election.

They should "fight like hell," Trump shouted.

According to the report, the president first tried to be driven to the Capitol.

But the Secret Service prevented that, as Cassidy Hutchinson, assistant to Chief of Staff Meadows, testified in a dramatic appearance before the committee over the summer.

Trump ultimately stayed behind in the White House and, according to eyewitnesses, followed what was happening on the TV in his dining room.

For 187 minutes he did nothing to call back or pacify the crowd.

The committee sees this as a “gross breach of duty”.

"Anyone who has entered the Capitol building without permission should exit immediately."

Donald Trump, after 187 minutes

Even when a number of advisers and friends begged by text or phone for the president to call the mob back, Trump remained silent.

White House counsel and Trump staffers prepared a statement for Trump: "Anyone who has entered the Capitol building without permission should exit immediately." Trump refused to make the statement.

It was only when his daughter Ivanka had him that Trump reluctantly let himself be persuaded to go public with a message for his supporters.

At 4:17 p.m.

Finally, more than three hours after the storming of the Capitol began, Trump released a video calling on the crowd to "go home."

4. The pressure on witnesses

One issue raised in the report is Trump's or his associates' manipulation of witnesses and other attempts by Trump circles to obstruct the investigation.

The report describes how several Trump confidants declined to testify, illustrated by the separately released, bizarre transcripts of those interviews.

Including lawyer John Eastman, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone and former Trump security adviser Michael Flynn.

It is also emphasized that Trump himself refused to answer the committee's questions.

Trump also tried for months to deny the panel access to important documents.

The evidence of obstruction of justice by influencing witnesses weighs particularly heavily.

Cassidy Hutchinson reported in her non-public testimony that she initially worked with a lawyer paid by those close to Trump to prepare her appearance before the committee.

That attorney advised her to omit certain aspects of the testimony that were particularly damaging to Trump.

He is also said to have suggested that she say "I don't remember" more often, even though she remembered details very well.

In addition, she is said to have been offered a well-paid job from the Trump environment.

What's next?

Even if the recommendations of the committee for a Trump indictment are not binding for the responsible Department of Justice, the report contains important information for the investigators.

Trump special counsel Jack Smith can use the testimony to build his own case against Trump.

When that will happen is uncertain.

The decision on a possible indictment against Trump should not be pending for too long.

In January 2024, the Republican primary will begin for the party's presidential candidacy.

Since the Justice Department traditionally minimizes investigations into possible candidates in the context of election campaigns so as not to influence the election, a possible Trump indictment could come sometime in the coming year.

But the report will also be read carefully elsewhere.

For example, in Georgia, where the state attorney general, Fani Willis, is investigating Trump and Giuliani for attempted voter fraud.

That could become acute much faster than a procedure in Washington