Jan. 6 committee's report paints damning portrait

Trump may be a fan of the coal industry, but he certainly didn’t enjoy this one.

“The highly partisan Unselect Committee Report purposely fails to mention the failure of (Nancy) Pelosi to heed my recommendation for troops to be used in D.C., show the ‘Peacefully and Patrioticly’ words I used, or study the reason for the protest, Election Fraud. WITCH HUNT!” Trump posted to his ironically named Truth Social.

Perhaps the former president has repeated his mantra enough times that he now believes it himself, but the evidence the Jan. 6 committee presented in its televised hearings and in its final report is that Trump didn’t really believe his phony stolen election rhetoric at the time, nor did most of those around him — although he still claims he did and does.

For example, Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who had a direct line to Trump’s inner circle, helped promote the stolen election fiction on the air by giving attorney Sidney Powell free rein to promote the fiction on his show. But in private, he knew the tale to be false, according to his own sworn deposition revealed last week as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

According to a Dominion attorney, Hannity’s real feeling about the election fraud narrative was, “I did not believe it for one second.”

Hannity was not alone. Nevertheless, the former president persisted in promoting his self-serving narrative, and encouraged those who stormed the Capitol.

Having asserted that he is the victim of a Deep State conspiracy to deny him reelection, Trump is now accused by the Jan. 6 committee of being at the center of a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The committee has forwarded its recommendation to the U.S. Justice Department that Trump be charged with four crimes: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and inciting or aiding an insurrection.

The last is self-explanatory. The first refers to delaying the official certification of the electoral vote by the Senate. The second refers to attempting to stop the electoral vote count on the basis of a false claim. The third refers to the plan by some of Trump’s supporters to submit “alternate” slates of electors.

While the Jan. 6 committee’s case is overwhelming, that doesn’t mean it translates into easily prosecutable crimes. While the former president faces legal jeopardy — especially with regard to his interference in Georgia’s vote-counting process — we’re doubtful he will face prosecution by President Joe Biden’s Justice Department. No prosecutor is going to prosecute a former president of the United States unless he is sure he can get a conviction, and when it comes to former President Trump, nothing is ever that sure, even if Trump’s misdeeds are obvious to all willing to see them.

So, at the end of the day, were the Jan. 6 committee’s efforts worthwhile? We say yes, if for no other reason than now there is a simple, easily digestible record, in the form of the committee’s final report, of what exactly happened on Jan. 6 and why.

In the end, the report finds, the blame rests with “one man”: Donald J. Trump.