“No one, including the former President, is above the law”. These were the comments of Bennie Thompson, chairman of the January 6th select committee.

After 18 months of investigation and over 1,000 interviews, that committee referred former president Donald Trump to the Justice Department for criminal charges.  The 845-page report lays out clearly the evidence for multiple crimes Trump committed - obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to make false statements, aiding or assisting an insurrection, conspiring to injure or impede an officer.

Trump was ready to do whatever it took to retain power.  He incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol to disrupt certification of Biden’s victory. He made over 200 attempts to pressure state officials to overturn election results in key states. He notoriously yelled at Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, “Fellas, I only need 11,000 votes - give me a break”.

While Mike Pence was at the Capitol being protected by his security detail from the raging mob screaming “Hang Mike Pence”, Trump didn’t bother to contact Pence to check whether he was safe.  That mob got to within 40 feet of Pence. Cassidy Hutchison, a senior aide to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, implored her boss to get the President to do something about Pence’s predicament.  Meadows answered, “The President thinks Mike deserves it, he doesn’t think they’re doing anything wrong”.  Meadows was right. Trump didn’t care about his Vice-President’s safety. While rioters threatened Pence’s life, Trump poured fuel over the fire with his tweet “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done”.

As the violence escalated at the Capitol, as law enforcement officers were beaten and as lives were being lost, Trump watched it all unfold on TV. 138 police officers were injured and 5 people died. Many of Trump’s closest aides pleaded with him to intervene to stop the violence but he resisted all efforts from his staff to call off his supporters. Trump did nothing. Pat Cipollone, the White House advisor, testified that Trump made no phone calls to the Secretary of Defence, the Attorney General or the Secretary of Homeland Security.  He didn’t ask the National Guard or other law enforcement agencies to intervene to stop the bloodshed.

Hours after the riot began Trump finally agreed to record a video.  The script read “I am asking you to leave the Capitol Hill region NOW and go home in a peaceful way”.  His aides urged him to stick to that script. But Trump spoke off the cuff.  In a video recorded in the Rose Garden instead of calming down the rioters, Trump incited them further with more lies.  “We had an election that was stolen from us - it was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side,” he said.  “There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us - from me, from you, from the country.  This was a fraudulent election, but…we have to have peace.  Go home, we love you, you’re very special. I know how you feel,” he concluded.

Trump knew his allegations were false but still promoted them.  He falsely declared victory on election night and called for the vote counting to stop.  That decision was not spontaneous - it had been planned. And that plan almost succeeded.

The detailed and meticulous work of the bipartisan committee has revealed in lurid detail the callous recklessness of the former President and the dire consequences of his overpowering narcissism. The committee’s report, disturbingly, also reveals the fragility of democracy, even in the most democratic of nations. It shows how that democracy was held together only by the integrity and courage of a few men and women mostly from Trump’s own party. The two Republicans who sat on that Committee defied their own party to participate in the investigation. The testimony of several Republicans, including former AG William Barr, former secretary of Labour Eugene Scalia, Arizona House Speaker Russell Bowers and White house aide Cassidy Hutchison took courage.  Their decision to participate conveyed the message that some things are far more important than party loyalty or personal ambition.

“The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump…none of the events of January 6th would have happened without him,” the report concluded.

But while Trump bears the bulk of responsibility, there were plenty of others who let it happen through their active support or their apathetic inaction. Here was a man who lied outrageously. The Washington Post catalogued 30,573 false or misleading claims made by Trump in just four years. This was a man who publicly incited violence, who mocked a disabled reporter, who openly bullied and threatened journalists, who abused his power, who was impeached twice, who was a serial philanderer, who publicly supported Putin over his own country’s intelligence service. Here was a rude, insolent, dangerously incompetent buffoon.

And yet his own party voted him as their candidate for the presidency. Even when his unfitness for office was clearly manifest they continued to bolster him.  When given the opportunity to impeach him, the Republicans voted in his favour.  Their support of Trump in the Senate acquitted him at his second impeachment trial. Even after the disaster he incited at the Capitol on 6th January, many Republicans are still on his side, supporting his 2024 Republican presidential nomination. They bear an even bigger responsibility for the harm Trump inflicted on his country than he does.

Trump remains a real and present danger for democracy. The Committee report has left no doubt about that. That lesson is one Malta should heed.  When you empower narcissists you cultivate chaos and catastrophe. Such people are unfit to govern, unsuited for power and jeopardise their country’s future. May the dawn of a new year deliver us from such miscreants.