The U.S. House of Representatives panel investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is considering recommending that the Justice Department pursue an unprecedented criminal charge of insurrection and two other counts against the former president Donald Trump.
In addition to the insurgency, an uprising aimed at overthrowing the government, the panel is also considering recommending that prosecutors pursue the charges of obstructing official process and conspiracy to defraud the United States, The Associated told Press (AP) a person familiar with the matter. Committee deliberations were continuing late Friday, and no decision was formalized on the specific charges the committee would refer to the Justice Department.
The panel is due to meet publicly on Monday afternoon when any recommendations are made public.
The deliberations were confirmed to the AP by a person familiar with the matter on condition of anonymity. A second person familiar with the deliberations validated that the committee was considering three charges. The lawyers on the panel argued, according to this person, that these three criminal laws were the strongest arguments to make.
The decision to issue referrals is not unexpected. Wyoming Republican Representative and Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney has for months hinted at sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department based on the extensive evidence the nine-member panel has gathered since its inception. in July 2021.
“You can’t send an armed mob to the Capitol; you cannot sit for 187 minutes and refuse to stop the attack while it is in progress. You can’t send a tweet that incites more violence,” Ms Cheney said of Donald Trump on NBC in October. “So we’ve been very clear on a number of different criminal offenses that are probably at issue here. »
The committee’s chairman, Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, last week detailed the possible removals as falling into a series of categories including criminal and ethical violations, legal misconduct and campaign finance violations.
It would then be up to federal prosecutors to decide whether to prosecute. Although the committee has no legal weight, its recommendations would add political pressure on the Justice Department as it investigates the actions of Donald Trump.
“The most serious offense in constitutional terms is the attempt to overturn a presidential election and circumvent the constitutional order,” committee member Democrat Jamie Raskin told reporters last week. “As a subsidiary to all of this, there is a whole host of statutory offenses that support the gravity and scale of this violent assault on America. »
Mr. Raskin, along with Ms. Cheney and Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren, both of California, made up the subcommittee that drafted the referral recommendations and presented them to the larger group for consideration.
During its investigation, the committee recommended that several members of Donald Trump’s inner circle be prosecuted for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas. One, for Steve Bannon, resulted in a conviction.
The charges under consideration for the committee’s final presentation on Monday were first reported by the ‘Politico’ news outlet.
Monday’s session will also include an overview of the committee’s final report, which is expected to be released on Wednesday. The panel will vote on whether to adopt the official record, effectively authorizing release of the report to the public.
The eight-chapter report will include hundreds of pages of findings about the attack and Donald Trump’s actions and words, drawing on what the committee learned during its interviews with more than 1,000 witnesses.