A case for trying Donald Trump

President Donald Trump talks on the phone to Vice President Mike Pence from the Oval Office on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021. Pic/AP

The congressional panel probing the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol released its final report late on Thursday, outlining its case that former U.S. President Donald Trump should face criminal charges of inciting the deadly riot.

The 814-page report released Thursday comes after the panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, held 10 hearings and obtained more than a million pages of documents. The witnesses - ranging from Trump's closest aides to law enforcement to some of the rioters themselves - detailed Trump's "premeditated" actions in the weeks ahead of the attack and how his wide-ranging efforts to overturn his defeat directly influenced those who brutally pushed past the police and smashed through the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Also Read: Jan 6 panel urges prosecution of Donald Trump over Capitol riot

The report lists 17 specific findings, discusses the legal implications of actions by Trump and some of his associates and includes criminal referrals to the Justice Department of Trump and other individuals, according to an executive summary released earlier this week. The insurrection gravely threatened democracy and "put the lives of American lawmakers at risk," the nine-member bipartisan panel concluded, offering so far the most definitive account of a dark chapter in modern American history.

On Monday, the committee asked federal prosecutors to charge the Republican former president with four crimes, including obstruction and insurrection, for what they said were efforts to overturn results of the November 2020 election and sparking the attack on the seat of government. In comments on his Truth Social network after the final report's release, Trump called it "highly partisan" and a "witch hunt". He said it failed to "study the reason for the (Jan. 6) protest, election fraud."

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