US House panel recommends criminal charges against Trump for Capitol violence

The congressional committee that investigated last year’s attack on the US Capitol recommended on Monday that criminal charges be filed against former president Donald Trump. The US committee urged the Justice Department to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump for the violent 2021 Capitol insurrection, calling for accountability for the former president and a time of reflection and reckoning.

After one of the most exhaustive and aggressive congressional probes in memory, the panel’s seven Democrats and two Republicans recommended criminal charges against Trump and associates who helped him launch a wide-ranging pressure campaign to try to overturn his 2020 election loss. The panel also released a lengthy summary of its final report, with findings that Trump engaged in a multi-part conspiracy to thwart the will of voters.

Four violations

At a final meeting on Monday, the committee alleged violations of four criminal statutes by Trump, in both the run-up to the riot and during the insurrection itself, as it recommended the former president for prosecution to the Justice Department. Among the charges they recommend for prosecution is aiding an insurrection, an effort to hold him directly accountable for his supporters who stormed the Capitol that day, AP reports.

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The committee also voted to refer conservative lawyer John Eastman, who devised dubious legal maneuvers aimed at keeping Trump in power, for prosecution on two of the same statutes as Trump: Conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstructing an official proceeding.

While a criminal referral is mostly symbolic, with the Justice Department ultimately deciding whether to prosecute Trump or others, it is a decisive end to a probe that had an almost singular focus from the start.

Breaking faith

Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said, “Trump broke the faith that people have when they cast ballots in a democracy and that the criminal referrals could provide a roadmap to justice” by using the committee’s work.

“I believe nearly two years later, this is still a time of reflection and reckoning,” Thompson said. “If we are to survive as a nation of laws and democracy, this can never happen again.”

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice-chairwoman, said in her opening remarks that every president in American history has defended the orderly transfer of power, except one.

The committee also voted 9-0 to approve its final report, which will include findings, interview transcripts and legislative recommendations. The full report is expected to be released on Wednesday.

The report’s 154-page summary, made public as the hearing ended, found that Trump engaged in a multi-part conspiracy to overturn the election. While the majority of the report’s main findings are not new, it altogether represents one of the most damning portraits of an American president in recent history, laying out in great detail Trump’s broad effort to overturn his own defeat and what the lawmakers say is his direct responsibility for the insurrection of his supporters.

The panel, which will dissolve on January 3 with the new Republican-led House, has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, held 10 well-watched public hearings and collected more than a million documents since it launched in July 2021. As it has gathered the massive trove of evidence, the members have become emboldened in declaring that Trump, a Republican, is to blame for the violent attack on the Capitol by his supporters almost two years ago.

Lead-up to the attack

The attack came after weeks of Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat, a campaign that was extensively detailed by the committee in its multiple public hearings, and laid out again by lawmakers on the panel at Monday’s meeting.

Many of Trump’s former aides testified about his unprecedented pressure on states, on federal officials and vice-president Pence to object to Biden’s win. The committee has also described in great detail how Trump riled up the crowd at a rally that morning and then did little to stop his supporters for several hours as he watched the violence unfold on television.

The panel aired some new evidence at the meeting, including a recent interview with long-time Trump aide, Hope Hicks. Describing a conversation she had with Trump around that time, she said he told her that no one would care about his legacy if he lost the election.

Hicks told the committee that Trump told her, “The only thing that matters is winning.”

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Trump says ‘fake charges’

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the former president accused House lawmakers on Monday of recommending “fake charges” against him as part of an attempt to prevent him from running for the White House again.

“The Fake charges made by the highly partisan Unselect Committee of January 6th have already been submitted, prosecuted, and tried in the form of Impeachment Hoax #2,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “I WON convincingly.”

“This whole business of prosecuting me is just like impeachment was — a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party,” he said.

While a so-called criminal referral has no real legal standing, it is a forceful statement by the committee and adds to political pressure already on Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith, who is conducting an investigation into January 6 and Trump’s actions.

(With Agency inputs)