Two Years After Capitol Invasion, Democrats Still Trying to Punish Trump

“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who was followed by many others. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.” That was the conclusion reached by the committee of the United States House of Representatives that investigated the invasion of the Capitol, seat of the American Congress, on January 6, 2021.

The group, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, recommended that the Justice Department prosecute Trump for the episode, which left more than 100 people injured and five people dead.

The committee wants the former president charged with obstruction of official government procedure, conspiracy to defraud the government, lying to the federal government and inciting insurrection. As it has competence only to investigate, and not to accuse, the group of deputies forwarded the accusations to the Department of Justice – which has no obligation to follow them. It is not yet possible to know whether Trump will actually be charged or not; but the department’s decision will have strong consequences.

Below, we have selected the main points surrounding the invasion of the Capitol and how the remarkable episode can help define the course of politics in the United States and impact the next presidential election, in 2024.

Accept or reject the recommendations?

The work of the committee investigating the invasion of the Capitol is over – there was an end date, and, with Republicans in control of the House from this year, work should not be resumed. Therefore, the final conclusions have already been released and forwarded to the Department of Justice, which formally has no obligation to follow them.

On the one hand, the committee wants Trump held accountable for Jan. 6; on the other, the former president continues to defend himself, denying all the accusations, saying that the investigation was politically motivated and that he is the victim of a witch hunt.

Now, in addition to weighing both sides, the Department of Justice has to deal with the pressure of public opinion and the enormous repercussions of the committee’s work, which became an issue in the country with a series of televised public hearings in which bombastic details were revealed about the former president’s connection to the invasion of the Capitol.

Trump failed to act to stop violence: committee

The final report produced by the House tells, in detail, how Trump’s false claims about the elections would have motivated the invasion and describes the actions of the then president on January 6, 2021.

According to the report, Trump spent hours watching scenes at the Capitol on TV and did not contact security forces to stop the violence. It was only around four o’clock in the afternoon that he posted a video on the internet asking the protesters to go home.

The conclusions are based on more than a year of work, in which the deputies heard more than a thousand testimonies and pored over documents such as telephone records, exchanges of messages and emails.

First president to be impeached twice

Convinced that then-President Donald Trump had been the real winner of the 2020 presidential election, violent protesters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to try to prevent deputies and senators from certifying Joe Biden’s victory. The scenes of the crowd attacking police and vandalizing the US Congressional headquarters shocked the world, but had an immeasurable impact on the United States, a country that calls itself the largest democracy in the world.

According to analysts in the country, the invasion of the Capitol may have generated a kind of collective trauma in the population, who saw the deepest symbols of their democracy under attack. Congressmen, police officers, journalists and other professionals who were in the US capital that day have also admitted to undergoing psychological treatment to deal with the shocking memories of the date. Politicians from both parties condemned the episode and called for punishment.

The invasion prompted Trump’s second impeachment, just a week before the end of his term, and made him the first president in US history to undergo two processes like this – the first was in 2019.

Unlike what happens in Brazil, in the United States being the target of a successful impeachment process does not necessarily mean being removed from office: Trump was acquitted by the Senate, but the processes had a strong political weight, since even ten Republicans joined the Democrats and voted to try to remove him from the presidency.