On Thursday (December 22) night, the January 6 Committee released its final report, officially concluding its year-and-a-half-long investigation.
The Committee made its 845-page report public three days after publicly voting on its criminal charge referrals for former President Donald Trump.
Thursday’s report is divided into eight chapters, includes an executive summary, and lists 11 recommendations for legislative changes.
The legislative recommendations were part of the Committee’s purpose, as its intention was to ensure a similar event wouldn’t occur in the future.
Yet, the report’s focus on Trump seemingly overshadowed its legislative purpose.
In the foreword, the chairman of the Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), emphasized that the report would lay bare in greater detail Trump’s “multistep plan… to overturn the 2020 election and block the transfer of power.”
Thompson asserted that not only would the 845-page report build onto its public hearings in the summer but “present new findings about Trump’s pressure campaign” that spanned local officials to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
Thompson’s foreword contends Trump’s sole purpose for the pressure campaign was to “throw out the will of the voters,” enabling him to remain in the Oval Office “past the end of his elected term.”
The report was initially meant to be released on Wednesday (December 21) but was postponed to Thursday, a move many believed had to do with the address Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave at a joint meeting of Congress, though this hasn’t been confirmed.
Much of the report rehashes what the Committee addressed in the public hearings.
However, it is the first time the Committee listed the full slate of its legislative recommendations to prevent another insurrection, including barring Trump from seeking reelection under the 14th Amendment.
