Jan. 6 Committee Recommends Barring Trump From Holding Office Again in Final Report – In a final report of 845 pages released Thursday night, the bipartisan House committee investigating the Capitol riots of January 6, 2021 presents nearly a dozen recommendations it believes would prevent a recurrence of history. Among them is the demand that Donald Trump never hold office again.
The committee draws on Section 3 of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states that anyone who has previously sworn an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” can be disqualified from holding future federal or state office.
In addition, the report urges congressional committees to “consider creating a formal mechanism for evaluating whether to bar those individuals identified in this Report under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment from holding future federal or state office.” The committee recommended the Department of Justice file four criminal charges against the former president for allegedly delaying an official proceeding, conspiring to defraud the government, inciting an insurrection, and conspiring to make a false statement.
People Also Read: Peru Ministers Resign After Deadly Protests As Pressure On Government Rises
The news is especially remarkable given that Trump is presently running for president again, having launched his 2024 campaign last month. “Our country has come too far to allow a defeated President to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence, and, as I saw it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson writes in the report’s foreword.
Among the report’s other recommendations are that the joint session of Congress for counting electoral votes be designated a “National Security Event” in the future and that Congress consider strengthening the penalties that face those who threaten federal election workers.
In a series of posts shared on his social media site Truth Social, Trump referred to the committee’s investigation as a “WITCH HUNT,” again voicing his false claims that he won an election he lost more than two years ago — the same claims he made hours before a group of his supporters breached the Capitol on Jan, 6, 2021.
“The change in the Election was Complete & Total, with Millions of votes switched, at least 17%. TRUMP WON, BIG!” Trump wrote on Friday. And while Trump — who lost both the popular vote and the electoral college to Joe Biden in 2020 — has continued to publicly claim he won the election, he told a different story in private, the committee details in its report.
People Also Read: Tories Make Billionaire Ex-Mubarak Minister Senior Treasurer
In her meeting with the committee, former White House communications director Hope Hicks said Trump described one of his own election lawyer’s claims about foreign powers interfering in the election as “crazy.” During a phone call with attorney Sidney Powell, Trump allegedly mocked the lawyer while his phone was on mute. “While she was speaking, the President muted his speakerphone and laughed at Powell, telling the others in the room, ‘This does sound crazy, doesn’t it?’ ” the report says.
