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Donald Trump ‘lit the fire’ of US Capitol riots, panel says | 5 points
The Congress passed an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act as part of its massive, end-of-the-year spending bill as the Senate gave its approval. The legislation now needs President Joe Biden's signature.
The US Congress on Friday approved new election rules in response to the January 6 Capitol riots last year, in the most significant legislative action the Congress has yet taken against former US President Donald Trump’s aggressive efforts to upend the 2020 election results, multiple reports have highlighted. In an incriminating 814-page report, the House committee, investigating the Capitol insurrection, blamed Trump for the attack. Donald Trump “lit that fire”, the committee's chairman, Mississippi Representative Bennie Thompson, wrote. “But in the weeks beforehand, the kindling he ultimately ignited was amassed in plain sight.”
The committee has recommended that he never be allowed to run for public office ever again.
Here are the top developments:
1) The final report by the House Jan. 6 committee was released late Thursday placing the blame for the 2021 US Capitol riots on former President Donald Trump and his “premeditated” plan, tracing his lies about widespread election fraud to conversations with some of his allies ahead of Election Day. “Donald Trump was no passive consumer of these lies,” the committee wrote in the report. “He actively propagated them.”
2) The Congress passed an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act as part of its massive, end-of-the-year spending bill as the Senate gave its approval. The legislation now needs President Joe Biden's signature.
3) The panel assessed that the former US President and his inner circle engaged in “at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach” to state officials between the election and the insurrection. At the same time, Trump was also trying to get Justice Department officials to go along with his plan.
4) Trump did little to stop the violence from erupting when they resorted to violence and stormed the Capitol, interrupting the certification of Biden's victory. In fact, he stayed at the White House, watching the violence on television for hours while refusing to ask his supporters to leave. “He willfully remained idle even as others, including his own Vice President (Mike Pence), acted,” the report stated.
5) The committee is dissolving over the next week as the new Republican-led House will be sworn in on January 3. However, the committee ensured that its work will live on, officially recommending that the Justice Department investigate and prosecute Trump on four crimes.
(With agency inputs)
