Today is Thursday, December 22, 2022. Tonight is the night that the House Select Committee has released its mammoth 845-page report on the insurrection that took place on January 6, 2021, under the aegis of the former president. What a holiday gift to the nation, one must say! I’m trying to see if there has been any kind of professional reaction to the opus. Andrew Weissmann, a frequent contributor to MSNBC, has said, very accurately, “it’s a monumental report” on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show, The Last Word. This significant step by the committee is reported online in an article for ABC News entitled “House Jan. 6 committee releases final report on probe into Capitol attack.”

Thus after nine public hearings and interviews with hundreds of witnesses, the House committee has released its Dickensian-length report on the events of January 6 and those leading up to it. The chairman of the committee, Bennie Thompson, had initially said the panel would be issuing the voluminous final report Wednesday, but the committee released a statement Wednesday afternoon saying the report’s discharge would be delayed until today.

Instead, the committee yesterday released the interview transcripts of 34 witnesses who were interviewed as part of the sprawling 17-month probe. Most of the transcripts contained responses from the witnesses invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-recrimination.

In a 160-page summary that the committee released on Monday, former president Donald J. Trump was identified as the “central cause” of the January 6 attack.

The panel said it would make multiple criminal referrals to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on at least four charges against Dumpf in connection to his actions surrounding the riot at the Capitol.

Another conspirator against the U.S. government, former Dumpf-backed attorney John Eastman, has also been identified in the report as aiding and abetting the ex-president with overturning the results of the 2020 election, and is being referred to the DOJ on multiple charges as well. Even though these referrals are viewed as largely symbolic, they certainly pack enough of a wallop to the agency that is already investigating the actions of the former demagogue.

The committee presented its conclusions as 17 findings, including that Dumpf knew his actions “would be illegal” when he pressured his vice president to “refuse to count electoral votes”; that Dumpf “unlawfully” pressured state officials and legislatures to overturn the election; that he “oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives”; and that he never ordered the deployment of the National Guard once the attack was under way.

Four repugnicans are also going to be referred by the panel to the House Ethics Committee for “appropriate action,” and the four Dumpf loyalists and cowards here include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who is a slime-ball par excellence, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), another reprehensible human, Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ).

Uber grifter Dumpf has dismissed the work of the committee, naturally, mocking it as the “Unselect Committee” and calling it a “political Witch Hunt.” Anything that approaches his true venality he calls a witch hunt and it’s despicable to hear this “broken record” from this lying toad.

Thompson has stated that the full January 6 report will be posted online. Will anyone even try to read this unwieldy Bleak House-like declaration of illegality on the part of the former president? I might even try to do it since I’m hearing the report is not a stale document at all.

We must all laud the way the committee has superbly handled its role in such a polarized atmosphere and how it has provided a minutely detailed description of treasonous behavior by a former commander-in-chief.

Stay safe and be well.