Nearly two years ago, a mob of pro-Trump rioters ransacked the Capitol and tried to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results – an otherwise procedural and symbolic step to finalize the presidential election across the country. And while Congress ultimately did certify those elections, it became a watershed moment in U.S. history as lawmakers and former Vice President Pence earlier that day were taken to secure locations while rioters entered the building.
Fast forward another midterm election and one congressional inquiry later, and the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot is set to release its anticipated final report today after it was initially expected to be released on Wednesday.
What’s in it: The final report encompasses months of investigation and committee hearings starting last year and comes just several days after the panel held their final hearing, voting to refer former President Trump to the Justice Department on four criminal counts.
The report is expected to include eight chapters. The panel has already released its executive summary and more than 30 witness transcripts, though many of the transcripts released include witnesses who invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Members of the House select committee are confident that the Justice Department will indict the former president. The chairman of the panel, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Minn.) told CNN’s Jake Tapper following their Monday hearing that, “if the evidence is as we presented it, I’m convinced the Justice Department will charge former President Trump. No one, including a former president, is above the law.”
Response: The Justice Department isn’t obligated to act on the House panel’s referral. And Trump, for his part, signaled that the criminal referral to the federal government would only rally his base around him.
“These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” he said on his Truth Social on Monday, later falsely adding that he had authorized thousands of National Guard troops to be deployed to the Capitol.
He argued that “this whole business of prosecuting me is just like impeachment was — a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party.”
But even members of Trump’s party have grown more comfortable publicly straying from the former president.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who was critical of Trump following the Capitol riot and has more recently ramped up his attacks against the former president, said in a statement following the panel’s decision to refer Trump to the Justice Department that, “the entire nation knows who is responsible for that day. Beyond that, I don’t have any immediate observations.”
It comes against the backdrop of Trump’s already-announced White House bid; several other criminal probes in New York and Georgia, and the Justice Department conducting their own inquiries into Trump; and as polling shows Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) surging ahead of Trump in hypothetical 2024 matchups.
