Just Security did a good rundown of some of the important findings in the January 6th Committee reports. Here are the most interesting:
What follows are highlights of the January 6th Select Committee’s final report from our initial review. Our discussion includes but is not limited to the report’s findings and treatment of issues including:
-Criminal misconduct in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
-Racism as a driver of efforts to overturn the popular vote in different parts of the country and in fueling some of the organized groups and individuals who attacked the Capitol.
-The apparent intelligence and law enforcement failure and the Committee’s perspective on it.
-The pressure campaign on state election officials to deviate from their legal obligations, and
-The role of social media in propagating false claims about the election and serving as a mechanism to plan acts of violence.
With so much at stake for American democracy, the January 6th Report provides the public an opportunity to reflect on persistent threats to the rule of law, elections, racial justice, and freedom from political violence.
1. White Supremacists, White Nationalism, Plus Anti-Government Extremists
The January 6th Report does well to make explicit one of the drivers of the efforts to overturn the election: racism. That includes but is not limited to white nationalism, a political project which is a particularly sinister and dangerous manifestation of white supremacist ideology.
The racist dimension is a theme that has been presented most powerfully by Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) in his remarks at the opening and the closing of the committee’s public hearings. “I’m from a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, the Klu Klux Klan, and lynching,” Rep. Thompson said in the first hearing. “I’m reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today try and justify the actions of the insurrectionists on January 6th, 2021.”
Racism helped propel post-election efforts to disenfranchise voters in major urban areas in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere; helped galvanize the concerted disinformation campaign against Black election poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss; and helped drive militia groups, Neonazis and similarly minded domestic terrorist groups to help plan and participate in the Capitol attack.
Giuliani, for example, “seized on a clip of Freeman passing Moss a ginger mint, claiming that the two women, both Black, were smuggling USB drives ‘as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.’ … Not only were Giuliani’s claims about Freeman and Moss reckless, racist, and false, they had real-world consequences that turned both women’s lives upside down. And further heightening the personal impact of these baseless attacks, President Trump supported, and even repeated, them, as described later,” the report states (p. 280).
“Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, mother and daughter, were besieged by incessant, terrifying harassment and threats that often evoked racial violence and lynching, instigated and incited by the President of the United States,” the report states later (p. 305) – after providing a detailed list of state and local officials across several battleground states subject to a wave of racist, sexist,and antisemitic threats galvanized by Trump and Giuliani’s public demonization of them.
The Report also contains discussion of the role of white nationalist extremists, such as “online provocateur” Nick Fuentes and his Groypers, a loose network made up of figures that hold racist and antisemitic views. It provides an in-depth look at the crucial role of the Proud Boys, “Western chauvinists” known to promote “an exclusionary, hyper-masculine interpretation of Western culture,” in organizing and executing the breach of the Capitol. The report notes that Ethan Nordean, a Proud Boys leader involved in the the attack at the Capitol, invoked the “Day of the Rope” when discussing his intent to reject the outcome of the 2020 election, “referring to a day of mass lynching of ‘race traitors’ in the white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries.”
“White supremacists and Confederate-sympathizers were among the first rioters to enter the U.S. Capitol,” the report explains.
At the same time as making these racist throughlines more widely understood, the Report helpfully identifies rightwing anti-government extremism– with a focus on the Oathkeepers and the Three Percenters– as a related movement that explains the conditions that gave rise to the January 6th attack It notes these closely related movements produced what might be thought of as a presage for the assault on the Capitol, as “[f]ar-right extremists protested at or inside State capitols, or at other government buildings, in at least 68 instances” between January 1, 2020 and January 20, 2021.
We have always thought that white supremacy should be foregrounded in the analysis of the January 6th attack and the efforts to disenfranchise voters in the ways Trump and his associates chose to do. Policymakers, scholars, and the general public can benefit significantly from grappling with the evidence and analysis provided by the select committee.
2. False Slate of Electors Scheme: The Principals
One of the highly active parts of the Justice Department’s investigation into the efforts to overturn the election involves the false slate of electors scheme. The January 6 Report provides new and compelling evidence pointing to Trump, Meadows, and Giuliani’s direct roles in organizing the scheme to replace the rightful delegates to the Electoral College determined by the outcome of the popular vote with individuals loyal to former Trump to falsely certify his winning the respective state.
What’s more, the evidence against Meadows – Trump’s White House chief of staff – and Giuliani – Trump’s personal attorney – is also evidence against Trump. Meadows and Giuliani appear to have been acting at Trump’s direction in orchestrating the scheme. What’s more, the Report does not include all of the Meadows texts that further corroborate these damning findings.
These passages highlight some of the new evidence:
In early December, the highest levels of the Trump Campaign took note of Chesebro’s fake elector plan and began to operationalize it. On December 6th, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows forwarded a copy of Chesebro’s November 18, 2020, memo to Trump Campaign Senior Advisor Jason Miller writing, “Let’s have a discussion about this tomorrow.” Miller replied that he had just engaged with reporters on the subject, to which Meadows wrote: “If you are on it then never mind the meeting. We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states.” Miller clarified that he had only been “working the PR angle” and they should still meet, to which Meadows answered: “Got it.” Later that week, Miller sent Meadows a spreadsheet that the Trump Campaign had compiled. It listed contact information for nearly all of the 79 GOP nominees to the electoral college on the November ballot for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And on December 8th, Meadows received a text message from a former State legislator in Louisiana recommending that the proposed “Trump electors from AR [sic] MI GA PA WI NV all meet next Monday at their state capitols[,] [c]all themselves to order, elect officers, and cast their votes for the President. . . . Then they certify their votes and transmit that certificate to Washington.” Meadows replied: “We are.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, a Special Assistant to the President and an assistant to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, confirmed Meadows’s significant involvement in the plan. Hutchinson told the Select Committee that Meadows followed the progress of the fake elector effort closely and that she “remember[ed] him frequently having calls, meetings, and outreach with individuals and this just being a prominent topic of discussion in our office.” When asked how many of his calls or meetings it came up in, she estimated “[d]ozens.” (pp. 345-46)
While the campaign’s core legal team stepped back from the fake elector effort on December 11th, it nonetheless went forward because “Rudy was in charge of [it]” and “[t]his is what he wanted to do,” according to Findlay. When Findlay was asked if this decision to let the effort proceed under Giuliani’s direction “was coming from your client, the President,” Findlay responded: “Yes, I believe so. I mean, he had made it clear that Rudy was in charge of this and that Rudy was executing what he wanted.” (p. 349)
With the committee’s work, the false slate of electors ends up being the scheme in which Trump and Meadows may face the greatest legal jeopardy. The two men (and Giuliani) put their fingerprints all over the plan, and the Justice Department will presumably be able to uncover more information to determine whether to proceed with indictments.
3. Pressure on State Officials – A vast and organized scheme
The January 6 Report provides new information about the breadth of Trump and his closest associates’ efforts to pressure state officials to exceed their legal authority to reverse the election outcome (Chapter Two). “The Select Committee estimates that in the two months between the November election and the January 6th insurrection, President Trump or his inner circle engaged in at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation, targeting either State legislators or State or local election administrators, to overturn State election result,” the report states.
In other words, Trump and his associates’ efforts were directed not only in the notorious phone call to Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and in phone conversations with Arizona’s Republican House Speaker Rusty Bowers, but in a more systematic fashion with state and local officials across the battleground states where Trump lost the popular vote.
Such an overarching pattern of behavior may become valuable evidence in establishing a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States (under 18 U.S.C. 371) in the Department of Justice investigation as well as in establishing criminal offenses under state law, such as in Georgia, Fulton County (see the Brookings Fulton County, Georgia report, 2d edition).
In pursuing criminal investigations, law enforcement agencies, and the Department of Justice in particular, may have a greater ability to get witnesses to testify. The case of Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey provides an example of someone with an apparent story to tell but reluctant to speak with the committee:
President Trump called Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey three times after their White House meeting: November 21st, November 25th, and December 14th. Shirkey did not recall many specifics of those calls and claimed he did not remember the President applying any specific pressure. The day after one of those calls, however, Shirkey tweeted that “our election process MUST be free of intimidation and threats,” and “it’s inappropriate for anyone to exert pressure on them.” From this and other public statements, it is clear that Shirkey was sensitive to outside forces pressuring people with roles in the election. In fact, the same day that the electoral college met and voted former Vice President Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 Presidential election, Shirkey received another call from President Trump and issued another public statement. Shirkey’s statement that day, December 14, 2020, read: “Michigan’s Democratic slate of electors should be able to proceed with their duty, free from threats of violence and intimidation” and “[i]t is our responsibility as leaders to follow the law….” (pp. 300-301)
4. Anatomy of the Attack – Understanding the Trump effect and indicators of a seditious conspiracy
Some supporters of President Trump have argued that the attack on the Capitol was already underway before Trump even ended his speech at the Ellipse. An implication is that his words cannot thus be regarded as incitement or causal. That idea, of course, need not be propagated only by the former president’s supporters. It is an important counterintelligence question worth asking.
The January 6th Report presents in exacting detail an analysis of the structure of the attack that points to two stark conclusions.
First, the Report shows that the attack would not have succeeded without Trump’s fiery speech at the Ellipse. The President of the United States at the time directed a mass of his followers to march on the Capitol. Context is important. He laid the groundwork: he told the crowd they needed to “take back our country” from an election “stolen from you.” Their rightful leader had been deposed in a fraudulent election, and the only way to get him back was to “fight like hell.” “When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules,” he said.
But this is not just about analyzing his speech. The Report goes into depth explaining how a first phase of the attack with the Proud Boys and their associates at the tip of the spear was successfully repelled by the DC Metropolitan Police. “After the initial breaches, the USCP was able to deploy enough officers to stop the rioters from advancing past the base of the inauguration stage. More importantly, rioter momentum was further halted when the first group of MPD officers arrived on scene at 1:11 p.m., almost precisely as President Trump finished his Ellipse speech,” the report explains. “A stalemate ensued.”
Law enforcement officers, however, were completely overwhelmed by the second wave, when thousands of rally-goers came over from the Ellipse. Without that speech, without that mob, the report explains in authoritative terms how the assault on the Capitol would not have happened.
Second, the Report presents extraordinary evidence and analysis of a preplanned operation by the Proud Boys that appears to have worked hand-in-hand with the closely held plan that Trump would direct the crowd to march on the Capitol. The Report states:
“Shortly before the joint session of Congress was set to begin at 1:00 p.m., the Proud Boys instigated an assault on outmanned law enforcement at the Peace Circle, a key location. They quickly overran security barriers and made their way onto the U.S. Capitol’s restricted grounds. Throughout the next several hours, members of the Proud Boys led the attack at key breach points, preventing law enforcement from gaining crowd control and inciting others to press forward.
President Trump finished his speech at the Ellipse at approximately 1:10 p.m. Toward the end of his remarks, the President directed his supporters to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol. Their natural path took them through the Peace Circle, which had already been cleared out by the Proud Boys and their associates.” (pp. 638 emphasis added)
Such a coincidence is not anywhere sufficient to indicting someone on a seditious conspiracy charge, but it raises the chilling prospect of coordination between Trump’s plan to dispatch the mob and the Proud Boys’ planned assault.
This section of the report is among the most impressive. Accordingly, readers should be aware of the remarkable sources and methods the committee used in its analysis:
“The Select Committee reviewed extensive footage of the attack, including that recorded by the U.S. Capitol Police’s (USCP) surveillance cameras, the Metropolitan Police Department’s (MPD) body-worn cameras, publicly available videos, as well as on-the-ground film produced by an embedded documentarian. The Select Committee interviewed rioters, law enforcement officers, and witnesses that were present on January 6th, while also consulting thousands of court filings. Using these sources of information, the Select Committee developed a timeline of events to understand how the unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol unfolded.” (pp. 637-38)
The section discusses in detail the actions of others such as Alex Jones and Ali Alexander in mobilizing and channeling the crowd – and in communicating with the Proud Boys. “Records for Enrique Tarrio’s phone show that while the attack on the Capitol was ongoing, he texted with Jones three times and [Jones’ colleague Owen] Shroyer five times,” as but one example. It will be for the Justice Department to crack open this part of the case. The committee has given them – and investigative reporters – not only many a lead, but a roadmap.
[…]
The committee is expected to release additional materials, including more transcripts of witness depositions and perhaps other evidence, before the start of the 118th Congress on January 3, 2023. Some of this underlying material, already in the hands of law enforcement authorities, will likely prove valuable to the ongoing investigations led by the Department of Justice, now under Special Counsel Jack Smith, and in the ongoing investigation led by Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis. The trial of Proud Boys leaders will commence early next year, and litigation related to false claims about Dominion Voting Systems will proceed at least against Trump associates. While the committee’s work may be complete, the events of January 6th will continue to reverberate well into the new year and beyond. Like the 9/11 Report, the January 6 final report will serve as a resource — and a warning — for decades to come.
They also criticize the committee pretty harshly for going too easy on law enforcement and social media which is a complaint I’m hearing from a lot of people. I assume some of this is the influence of Liz Cheney who is, after all, a traditional conservative who tends to defend cops right or wrong. but I also think they may have been reluctant to come down too hard on the DOJ and the FBI when they are turning over the evidence to them for possible prosecution. Maybe they felt it wouldn’t be prudent to hit them when they are hoping they’ll indict Trump. Either way, it’s unfortunate. This was a big part of what happened. The Feds and the locals just didn’t take seriously the threat of white supremacists and extremists, which say everything.
As for social media, I don’t know what to say. Trump invited the insurrectionists to DC on twitter and told them it would be “wild.” He spent weeks pounding the message across social media and on TV that the election was stolen and they had to take it back by any means necessary. Extremists gathered online to plan their attack and all the attendees were already charged up even before he told them to march to the capitol and “fight like hell.” So yes, social media was intrinsic to the insurrection. We already knew that. The question is what to do about it. We do have free speech in this country and it’s not an easy problem to solve.
All in all, I think the report is powerful and hopefully will be useful to the DOJ. It is certainly useful to any American who wants to know what really happened in 2020 and January 6th. It’s not pretty and reading it brings home the fact that we are in a very unstable time and our system is not nearly as solid as we thought it was. They came close. Too close.
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