On December 19, the January 6th (J6) House Select Committee outlined Trump’s infamies. Infamy is the state of a bad or evil reputation, or the state of being infamous. Although I used the term “Trump’s legacy” in The Trump Files, when writing about the apparent criminal behavior of the former President, I chose the word “infamy” in this post. Trump’s legacy is bad, and a stronger term for that is his “infamies.” Or I could have used the word “spectre,” but I don’t think it’s strong enough.

I concluded in The Trump Files that Donald Trump, by advancing the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, staged and plotted to overthrow the American government by directing officials at the state and federal level to either find extra votes, or change the laws to install him as the president.

The January 6th committee, after 18 months of gathering immense volumes of information and the testimony of hundreds of witnesses, reached 17 specific findings. These findings support the underlying themes in The Trump Files. The findings were reported in the committee’s Executive Summary (ES).

The report summarized the evidence of what ultimately became a multi-part plan to overturn the 2020 Presidential election . Accordingly, the central cause of January 6 “was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him” (p. 7, ES).

The committee also voted to issue criminal referrals against former President Donald Trump as well as:

• Mark Meadows, Former Trump Chief of Staff
• Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer
• John Eastman, White House Lawyer
• Jeff Clark, DOJ Lawyer
• Kenneth Chesebro, Trump Lawyer

No doubt other individuals will be summoned for their involvement in Trump’s attempt to overthrow his own government. The Committee’s report is a significant contribution to our democratic form of governing. The American people need to know that criminal and unethical behavior needs to be accounted for. Some of those in the mob that attacked the Capitol have been indicted and charged with either felonies or misdemeanors. A few have been convicted of sedition. Now it’s time for those who planned and instigated the attack to be held responsible for their criminal behavior.

In The Trump Files I explored the Capitol insurrection and pointed out that the Senate refused to investigate the attack, leaving it to the House of Representatives to investigate the January 6 day of infamy. In an article in the Washington Post, Joanne B. Freeman questions whether the January 6 siege of the Capitol failed. Freeman is a professor who specializes in the politics and political culture of the Revolutionary and Early National Periods of American history. She states that the insurgency did not fail, saying that “our government is still under attack. The offense is quieter but no less menacing, eroding the government from with in.¹

J6 Committee Findings

The report summarized the evidence of what ultimately became a multi-part plan to overturn the 2020 Presidential election . Accordingly, the central cause of January 6 “was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him” (p. 7, ES).

1. Beginning election night and continuing through January 6th and thereafter, Donald Trump purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud related to the 2020 Presidential election in order to aid his effort to overturn the election and for
   purposes of soliciting contributions. These false claims provoked his supporters to violence on January 6th.
2. Knowing that he and his supporters had lost dozens of election lawsuits, and despite his own senior advisors refuting his election fraud claims and urging him to concede his election loss, Donald Trump refused to accept the lawful result of
   the 2020 election. Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome.
3. Despite knowing that such an action would be illegal, and that no State had or would submit an altered electoral slate, Donald Trump corruptly pressured Vice-President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes during Congress’s joint
   session on January 6th.
4. Donald Trump sought to corrupt the U.S. Department of Justice by attempting to enlist Department officials to make purposely false statements and thereby aid his effort to overturn the Presidential election. After that effort failed, Donald Trump offered the position of Acting Attorney General to Jeff Clark knowing that Clark intended to disseminate false information aimed at overturning the election.

5. Donald Trump oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives.
6. Donald Trump pressured Members of Congress to object to valid slates of electors from several States.
7. Donald Trump purposely verified false information filed in Federal court.
8. Based on false allegations that the election was stolen, Donald Trump summoned tens of thousands of supporters to Washington for January 6th. Although these supporters were angry and some were armed, Donald Trump instructed them to
   march to the Capitol on January 6th to “take back” their country.
9. Knowing that a violent attack on the Capitol was underway and knowing that his words would incite further violence, Donald Trump purposely sent a social media message publicly condemning Vice President Pence at 2:24 p.m. on January 6th.
10. 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.
11. Each of these actions by Donald Trump was taken in support of a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 Presidential election.

12. The intelligence community and law enforcement agencies did successfully detect the planning for potential violence on January 6th, including planning specifically by the Proud Boys and Oath Keeper militia groups who ultimately led the attack
    on the Capitol. As January 6th approached, the intelligence specifically identified the potential for violence at the U.S. Capitol. This intelligence was shared within the executive branch, including with the Secret Service and the President’s National Security Council.
13. Intelligence gathered in advance of January 6th did not support a conclusion that Antifa or other left-wing groups would likely engage in a violent counterdemonstration, or attack Trump supporters on January 6th. Indeed, intelligence from January 5th indicated that some left-wing groups were instructing their members to “stay at home” and not attend on January 6th.20 Ultimately, none of these groups was involved to any material extent with the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.
14. Neither the intelligence community nor law enforcement obtained intelligence in advance of January 6th on the full extent of the ongoing planning by President Trump, John Eastman, Rudolph Giuliani and their associates to overturn the certified election results. Such agencies apparently did not (and potentially could not) anticipate the provocation President Trump would offer the crowd in his Ellipse speech, that President Trump would “spontaneously” instruct the crowd to march to the Capitol, that President Trump would exacerbate the violent riot by sending his 2:24 p.m. tweet condemning Vice President Pence, or the full scale of the violence and lawlessness that would ensue. Nor did law enforcement anticipate that President Trump would refuse to direct his supporters to leave the Capitol once violence began. No intelligence community advance analysis predicted exactly how President Trump would behave; no such analysis recognized the full scale and extent of the threat to the Capitol on January 6th.
15. Hundreds of Capitol and DC Metropolitan police officers performed their duties bravely on January 6th, and America owes those individual immense gratitude for their courage in the defense of Congress and our Constitution. Without their bravery, January 6th would have been far worse. Although certain members of the Capitol Police leadership regarded their approach to January 6th as “all hands on deck,” the Capitol Police leadership did not have sufficient assets in place to address the violent and lawless crowd. Capitol Police leadership did not anticipate the scale of the violence that would ensue after President Trump instructed tens of thousands of his supporters in the Ellipse crowd to march to the Capitol, and then tweeted at 2:24 p.m. Although Chief Steven Sund raised the idea of National Guard support, the Capitol Police Board did not request Guard assistance prior to January 6th. The Metropolitan Police took an even more proactive approach to January 6th, and deployed roughly 800 officers, including responding to the emergency calls for help at the Capitol. Rioters still managed
    to break their line in certain locations, when the crowd surged forward in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet. The Department of Justice readied a group of Federal agents at Quantico and in the District of Columbia, anticipating that January 6th could become violent, and then deployed those agents once it became clear that police at the Capitol were overwhelmed. Agents from the Department of Homeland Security were also deployed to assist.
16. President Trump had authority and responsibility to direct deployment of the National Guard in the District of Columbia, but never gave any order to deploy the National Guard on January 6th or on any other day. Nor did he instruct any Federal
    law enforcement agency to assist. Because the authority to deploy the National Guard had been delegated to the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense could, and ultimately did deploy the Guard. Although evidence identifies a likely miscommunication between members of the civilian leadership in the Department of Defense impacting the timing of deployment, the Committee has found no evidence that the Department of Defense intentionally delayed deployment of the
    National Guard. The Select Committee recognizes that some at the Department had genuine concerns, counseling caution, that President Trump might give an illegal order to use the military in support of his efforts to overturn the election.

1. Joanne Freeman, “Jan. 6 Crossed a Line. We Need to Say So before It’s Too Late for Democracy,” Washington Post, December 10, 2021, retrieved January 12, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook