The January 6 committee on Monday referred former president Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for prosecution on four charges related to his conduct leading up to and during the riot that occurred in the Capitol in the wake of his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
The referrals include obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., making a false statement, and inciting an insurrection, the last of which could disqualify Trump from holding public office in the future. Trump recently announced his third presidential bid.
On January 6, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol with the alleged intention to stop the certification of the election results for then Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Trump attempted to “disrupt the peaceful transition of power” in a grave betrayal of duty as outlined in the “take care” clause of the Constitution and in a “crime against democracy,” committee member and Democratic representative Jamie Raskin said. Enough evidence was collected to merit the referrals, he added. Against the urging of his family members and some advisors, Raskin claimed, Trump continued to stoke the false narrative that the election was “stolen” via widespread voter fraud and Democratic manipulation.
The committee also voted to refer four Republican lawmakers, including House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Representatives Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, and Andy Biggs, to the House Ethics Committee over their refusal to honor the panel’s subpoenas.
Lawyer John Eastman, who the committee argued architected the strategy of pressuring then-vice president Mike Pence to reject electoral votes against Trump, was also slapped with a criminal referral.
The largely partisan panel, which included Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger as its only Republicans, then unanimously voted to send the referrals of Trump and other officials who resisted subpoenas to testify about the “insurrection” to the Department of Justice. Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the committee, obliged.
“This committee is nearing the end of its work. But as a country, we remain in strange and uncharted waters. We’ve never had a President of the United States stir up a violent attempt to block the transfer of power,” Thompson said. “If we are to survive as a nation of laws and democracy, this can never happen again.”
The committee conducted an 18-month congressional investigation that involved over 100 subpoenas, interviews with more than 1,200 witnesses, and the review of troves of documents before it came to its conclusion Monday.