Today the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol has released its final report, which expands on the previous hearings, describing that “evidence has led to an overriding and straight forward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed” in an effort to overturn the 2020 Presidential election.

“This Report supplies an immense volume of information and testimony assembled through the Select Committee’s investigation, including information obtained following litigation in Federal district and appellate courts, as well as in the U.S. Supreme Court. Based upon this assembled evidence, the Committee has reached a series of [17] specific findings, including the following:

• Beginning election night and continuing through January 6th and thereafter, Donald Trump purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud related to the 2020 Presidential election in order to aid his effort to overturn the election and for purposes of soliciting contributions.
• Knowing that he and his supporters had lost dozens of election lawsuits, and despite his own senior advisors refuting his election fraud claims and urging him to concede his election loss, Donald Trump refused to accept the lawful result of the 2020 election. Rather than honor his constitutional obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” President Trump instead plotted to overturn the election outcome.
• Despite knowing that such an action would be illegal, and that no State had or would submit an altered electoral slate, Donald Trumpcorruptly pressured Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes during Congress’s joint session on January 6th.
• Donald Trump sought to corrupt the U.S. Department of Justice by attempting to enlist Department officials to make purposely false statements and thereby aid his effort to overturn the Presidential election. After that effort failed, Donald Trump offered the position of Acting Attorney General to Jeff Clark knowing that Clark intended to disseminate false information aimed at overturning the election.
• Without any evidentiary basis and contrary to State and Federal law, Donald Trump unlawfully pressured State officials and legislators to change the results of the election in their States.
• Donald Trump oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives.

This Report begins with a factual overview framing each of these conclusions and summarizing what our investigation found. That overview is in turn supported by eight chapters identifying the very specific evidence of each of the principal elements of President Trump’s multi-part plan to overturn the election, along with evidence regarding intelligence gatheredbefore January 6th and security shortfalls that day.

For further reading on the January 6th, 2021 attack, please refer to our HSDL In Focus topic: January 6th Capitol Attack, our timeline event of the attack, and the Introductory Material to the Final Report of the Select Committee.