Donald Trump and the House Apportionment Committee: Insights from his 2021 Decree to Mar-at-Local Law
The House January 6 committee voted to subpoena him after laying bare his depraved efforts to overthrow the 2020 election and his dereliction of duty as his mob invaded the US Capitol.
The final hearing before the November elections ended with a mic drop to warn that Trump owes the nation an explanation for a day of infamy in January 2021.
The ex-president has not yet been charged in either probe and there is so far no indication that he will be. But the sense that Trump is approaching a moment of maximum legal peril is being driven both by signs of an increasingly aggressive investigation by special counsel Jack Smith and the realities of a calendar that offers limited time for any potential prosecutions before the 2024 campaign is in full swing. Trump could get a new blow next week when the committee releases its final report and possible criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.
Since everything about Trump’s political career has been unprecedented it is no surprise that his political reemergence is posing new questions with the potential to challenge and damage the country’s political institutions.
The Supreme Court was told that it wouldn’t be interested in getting sucked into Donald Trump’s bid to derail a Justice Department probe into classified material he kept at Mar-a-Lago.
The court turned down his emergency request to intervene, which could have delayed the case, without explaining why. Even though conservative justices Trump elevated to the bench and whom he thinks owe him a debt of loyalty, no dissents were noted.
The Mueller Investigation into the 2016 Mar-a-Lago Showdown: The Ex-President’s Defendants Have a Case against the Trump Organization
For all the political drama that surrounds the continuing revelations over one of the darkest days in modern American history on January 6, it’s the showdown over classified documents that appears to represent the ex-President’s most clear cut and immediate threat of true criminal exposure.
The final report of the House January 6 committee is expected to contain more scrutiny of the former president than before and is likely to be expunged by the incoming Republican majority next year.
CNN previously reported that the panel has also weighed criminal referrals for a number of Trump’s closest allies, including former Trump attorney John Eastman, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, according to multiple sources.
CNN’s Brown had reported late on Wednesday that a Trump employee had told the FBI about being directed by the ex-President to move boxes out of a basement storage room at his Florida club after Trump’s legal team received a subpoena for any classified documents. The FBI also has surveillance footage showing a staffer moving the boxes.
The development is troubling since it could indicate a pattern of deception that plays into a possible obstruction of justice charge. The FBI told the judge on the initial search warrant there could be something obstruction of justice going on at the resort.
According to David Schoen, the attorney for Trump in his second impeachment trial, the details of what occurred at Mar-a-Lago did not amount to obstruction of justice.
But he added: “If President Trump or someone acting on behalf knew … that they didn’t have the right to have these documents in their possession, the documents belonged to the government or the American people, et cetera, and knowingly disobeyed the subpoena, knowingly hid the documents or kept the documents from being found, then that could theoretically constitute obstruction.”
On Thursday morning, New York Attorney General Letitia James asked a state court to block the Trump Organization from moving assets and continuing to perpetrate what she has alleged in a civil lawsuit is a decades-long fraud.
“There is every reason to believe that the Defendants will continue to engage in similar fraudulent conduct right up to trial unless checked by order of this Court,” James wrote in an application for a preliminary injunction linked to her $250 million suit against Trump, his three eldest children and his firm.
The federal investigation now being led by special counsel Jack Smith is examining Trump in its extensive probe into January 6, 2021, and it appears that DOJ investigators are already looking at much of the conduct that the select committee has highlighted.
The House January 6 committee, the alleged attempt to stealGeorgia’s election, and a new trial of pro-Trump Oath Keepers underscore the breadth of attempts to secure accountability over one of the darkest days in modern American history. These new signs of a net possibly closing around Trump and his allies come a month after voters sent a signal of disapproval with his obsession over the 2020 election by repudiating many midterm candidates in swing states who bought his claims of voter fraud.
Subpoenaing the Ex-President’s Unselected Committee on Capitol Hill Correspondence to Budowich: The Case for a Coverage of “America First”
As always, Trump came out fighting on Thursday, one of those days when the seriousness of a crisis he is facing can often be gauged by the vehemence of the rhetoric he uses to respond.
First Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich mocked the unanimous 9-0 vote in the select committee to subpoena the former President for documents and testimony.
“Pres Trump will not be intimidate(d) by their meritless rhetoric or un-American actions. Trump-endorsed candidates will sweep the Midterms, and America First leadership & solutions will be restored,” Budowich wrote on Twitter.
Then the former President weighed in on his Truth Social network with another post that failed to answer the accusations against him, but that was clearly designed to stir a political reaction from his supporters.
Why did the Unselect Committee not ask me to testify months ago? Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST,’” Trump wrote.
Given the ex-President’s history of obstructing efforts to examine his tumultuous presidency, it would be a surprise if he does not fight the subpoena, although there might be part of him that would relish a primetime spot in a live hearing.
The bipartisan committee could gain some cover from the subpoena as pro-Trump Republicans claim it is a politicized attempt to impugn Trump, which has not allowed cross-examination of witnesses. The committee would have to ask for a referral to the Justice Department from the full House if it wanted to enforce a subpoena. It took such a step as well with Steve Bannon, Trump’s Chief Strategist, who was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress and will be sentenced soon.
The effort to follow a similar path if Trump is unwilling to testify could take months and involve lengthy legal battles. Given the current state of the January 6 probe, it is difficult to say whether the Justice Department would consider this a good investment. The committee could be swept into history, with the Republicans taking over the majority in the House after the elections.
With the slim chance that Trump would comply with a Congressional subpoena, many observers will see the vote to target the ex- President as yet another theatrical flourish in a set of slickly produced hearings that often resembled a television courtroom drama.
But the committee’s Republican vice chair, Rep. Liz Cheney, said the investigation was no longer just about what happened on January 6, but about the future.
With every attempt to justify the behavior of the former president, we chip away at the foundation of our Republic, said the Wyoming lawmaker who lost her primary to a Trump-backed challenger.
The Truth About Donald Trump and the Investigation of the House Investigations into a White House Committee on Elections and Prosecutive Crimes
The resolution that led to the creation of the committee did not include the task of determining whether anyone broke the law. According to a House resolution, it’s main mission is to come up with an authoritative account of what happened, identify the causes of the violence, and provide recommendations to try to prevent it again.
The committee was turned into an inspector general at the Justice Department, coming up with new evidence that might have influenced Mr. Trump and his aides to do things that were not in line with the law.
Committee staff members — many of whom are former prosecutors — employed a strategy of highlighting a range of potential crimes or lanes for investigators to pursue at each of the panel’s public hearings.
Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Times staff can vote, but they cannot endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.
Liz Cheney raised concerns about witness tampering during the panel’s final hearing, but it’s not known if the panel will pursue a related referral.
To ensure that we tell the whole truth, allow government officials to make changes to the system and allow the American people to make better decisions about who they choose, and also to encourage D.O.J. to do their job, is what the purpose of this committee is.
Former President Donald Trump and his movement are posing new challenges to accountability, free elections and the rule of law, ushering in a fresh period of political turmoil.
Trump dropped his clearest hint yet Saturday of a new White House run at a moment when he’s on a new collision course with the Biden administration, the courts and facts.
Trump’s current prominence on the political scene was already highly unusual. One-term presidents typically fade fairly fast into history. It is a testament to his hold on the Republicans that he remains a key player almost two years after he lost reelection. And while there is growing talk about whether his thicket of legal and political controversies could convince some GOP primary voters it’s time to move on, Trump still seems to have plenty of juice.
Those controversies also show that given the open legal and political loops involving the ex-President, a potential 2024 presidential campaign rooted in his claims of political persecution could create even more upheaval than his four years in office.
While a lot of differences exist within the Democrats and Republicans regarding the economy, abortion, foreign policy and crime in the upcoming 2020 elections, there is always a chance that the coming years will be centered on the ex- President and his future.
Trump’s men and women are also stepping up their activity. His political guru Steve Bannon, whose own grassroots movement is seeking to infiltrate school boards and local election machinery, is vowing to expose the Biden “regime” in an appeal against a prison sentence handed down last week for defying a congressional subpoena. The Supreme Court needs to prevent an attempt to compel Lindsey Graham to testify in a Georgia investigation of Trump’s election plagiarizing effort.
Pro-Trump Candidates in Arizona: A Case Study of a Candidate That Runs Amenable to Election Frauds and the Donald Trump Organization
In Arizona, one of the ex-President’s favorite candidates, GOP gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake – a serial spreader of voter fraud falsehoods – is again raising doubts about the election system. Lake is concerned that it probably isn’t going to be fair.
There is a chance that next month’s elections will install a Republican majority in the House that will return Trumpism to power, since the ex-president has not abandoned his position as the House GOP leader. Some leading Republicans have mentioned that they would use their power to investigate Biden for a possible clash with Trump in 2020 and that could result in Biden’s impeachment.
An already pro-Trump Republican presence in Washington is likely to expand after the midterms. Scores of Trump-endorsed candidates are running on a platform of his 2020 election fraud falsehoods, raising questions over whether they will accept results should they lose their races in just over two weeks.
On another politically sensitive front, the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud and grandy larceny trial begins in Manhattan on Monday. The trial could affect the business empire of the former President, as well as prompt fresh claims from him that he is being persecuted for political reasons, which could inject yet another contentious element into election season. In a separate civil case, New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, has filed a $250 million civil suit against Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization, alleging that they ran tax and insurance fraud schemes to enrich themselves for years.
Democrats are trying to get Trump back in the political spotlight. President Joe Biden equated MAGA followers with “semi-fascism” and some campaigns have tried to scare critical suburban voters by warning pro-Trump candidates are a danger to democracy.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/politics/donald-trump-circus-analysis/index.html
The Mueller Investigation of the 2008 Texas Rally: When Will the Ex-President Go? What Can the Committee Say About His Decrees?
But raging inflation and spikes in gasoline prices appear to be a far more potent concern before voters head to the polls, which could spell bad news for the party in power in Washington.
At the Texas rally on Saturday, the ex- President stated that he will probably have to go for another White House bid.
“It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves,” Cheney told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
He won’t be doing his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus or the food fight that happened. This is a far too serious set of issues.”
The committee has taken most depositions behind closed doors and on video and used testimony throughout its highly produced presentations. Only its most sympathetic witnesses have appeared in person. While this has helped create a powerful narrative that has painted a picture of shocking derelictions of duty by Trump on January 6, it has also deprived viewers of seeing witnesses under cross examination. It’s difficult to know whether the committee’s case would stand up in court.
The prospect of video testimony over an intense period of days or hours is likely to be unappealing to the former President because it would be harder for him to dictate the terms of the exchanges and control how his testimony might be used.
If there is evidence a crime was committed, Garland would face a dilemma over whether the national interest lay in implementing the law to its full extent or whether the consequences of prosecuting a former commander in chief in a fractious political atmosphere could tear the country apart.
A decision to charge an ex-president running for a non-consecutive second White House term would undoubtedly cause a firestorm. Future presidents with strongman instincts would be warned against sparing him from accountability if there’s proof of a crime.
Criminal referrals would largely be symbolic in nature. The committee lacks prosecutorial powers, and the Justice Department does not need a referral from Congress to investigate crimes. The DOJ special counsel investigation is already examining Trump in its extensive probe into January 6 and members of the panel have acknowledged they do not intend to pile on existing prosecutions.
The committee has not officially decided whom to refer to the Justice Department for prosecution and for what offenses, sources said. Four individuals whose names have not been reported before, are among those who are under consideration for a spot on the panel.
The referrals will come in the form of a letter from the committee to the Justice Department making its case for prosecution. Referrals do not carry any legal weight or compel the Justice Department to act.
Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, told reporters Friday he expected to reach a decision on criminal referrals at Sunday’s virtual meeting. But Schiff reiterated on Sunday that the committee will wait to announce its decision until December 21, when it plans to present the rest of its report.
The Raskin Subcommittee on Referrals to the House Select Committee on Investigating the Gravity and Magnitude of the Violent Attack on America
When we looked at the evidence we had collected, we couldn’t overlook some of them, because we were not investigating people for criminal activity.
The subcommittee that leads the January 6 presentation of recommendations on criminal referrals is led by a Democrat, Jamie Raskin of Maryland. And we are going to spell that out.”
The attempt to overthrow a presidential election is the most grave offense in constitutional terms, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who leads a subcommittee that presents recommendations on criminal referrals to the full panel. Subsidiary to all of that are a whole host of statutory offenses, which support the gravity and magnitude of that violent assault on America.”
The referrals are part of a larger list of recommendations from the committee’s subpanel of lawyers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md. The members include a Democrat and a Republican. The subpanel was created in October to address criminal referrals and other recommendations.
Meadows did not turn over other documents he had, and the House committee voted to hold him in criminal contempt of Congress for it and for his refusal to testify, referring the matter to the Justice Department. The Justice Department decided against indicting Meadows for evading his subpoena due to his position in the Trump West Wing and claims of executive privilege.
The panel handles criminal referrals, including referrals to DOJ for contempt of Congress, according to a Thursday suggestion by Raskin.
“We are as a subcommittee, several of us that were charged with making the recommendations about referrals, going to be making that recommendation to the full committee today,” panel member Rep. Adam Schiff said prior to the meeting on CBS “Face the Nation.” Members of the committee need to approve the recommendations.
A Subcommittee on Donald J. Eastman and the 2020 2020 Counting of Voter Frauds Presented to the House of Representatives
The opinion was handed down by US District Judge David O. Carter in a dispute over whether the House could access certain emails sent to and from former Trump attorney John Eastman. The judge cited emails discussing Trump’s awareness that certain voter fraud claims being made in court were inaccurate as evidence of a plot to defraud the federal government.
The committee walked through the idea that was put forward by Eastman that had been rejected by Trump’s White House Attorneys but was still embraced by the former President.
The former DOJ official was facing a criminal contempt of Congress referral at the time after he refused to answer the committee’s questions at a prior deposition. The referral was never sent to DOJ because on the day the committee voted on the contempt referral, Clark’s lawyer informed the committee that he planned to invoke his Fifth Amendment right to not answer questions on the grounds it may incriminate him.
The panel dedicated much of a June hearing to Clark’s role in Trump’s attempts to weaponize the Justice Department in the final months of his term as part of the plot to overturn the 2020 election and stay in power.
The committee zeroed in on the efforts of Scott Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican who helped Clark get into the White House.
CNN has previously reported on the role that Perry played, and the committee in court filings released text messages Perry exchanged with Meadows about Clark.
Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to the leader of the group, said that he wanted to have Mr. Jeff Clark take over the Department of Justice.
Giuliani, Trump’s onetime personal attorney and a lead architect of his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, met with the panel in May for more than nine hours.
The subcommittee presenting its recommendations to the full panel had a virtual meeting, but it is not clear if those recommendations were adopted. A source described the meeting as “successful” but did not elaborate.
Already, in a March court filing, the committee said Trump illegally obstructed an official proceeding — Congress’ counting of the Electoral College votes. Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cheat the United States.
There is evidence, according to the congressman, that the president committed crimes related to his efforts to overturn the election.
Insurrection Under Jack Smith: a House Minority Threat to Truth, Democracy, and the Trump/McKenna Instability
If we go forward with it, I think it is an important decision. One that the Department should take a closer look at.
But each sign that once slow burning efforts to work through the trauma of the post-election period are heating up brings a parallel warning that the future threat to truth and democracy remains acute. A Georgia lawmaker who is a key force in the Incoming GOP House Majority that is likely to try to shut down or obstruct investigations into Trump is involved in another controversy over the insurrection.
The Georgia Republican said that if she had her way, the mob that smashed into the Capitol would have been armed. She insisted that she was joking when she made the comments. This came days after the ex-president stepped up his voter fraud falsehoods by demanding the termination of the Constitution in a sign of how his potential second term might unfold if he wins the 2024 election and returns to the White House.
It is remarkable how tight a hold Trump’s unprecedented attempt to overturn a presidential election still has on Washington politics – even if many Americans are more concerned with feeding their families and paying rent amid raging inflation. And Trump’s campaign of lies is having a damaging impact. 34% of Republican-aligned adults are somewhat confident that the will of the people will be reflected in the elections, compared to 43% in October according to a new CNN/SSRS poll.
Smith is going to investigate Trump’s role in an effort to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power in 2020 and his apparent careless storage of classified documents at his Florida residence and resort. Smith and his team subpoenaed the Secretary of State from Georgia, who was on the other end of the president’s call to try to convince him to overturn Biden’s win. Smith has issued grand jury subpoenas to ex-Trump adviser Stephen Miller, as well as two former White legal counsels.
700 days have gone by since the Washington Post published the full hour audio of the phone call, before the DOJ could subpoena him. When does it happen? Under Jack Smith.”
Goodman also suggested that Trump’s legal team was guilty of wishful thinking if they believed that Smith’s appointment after a period spent abroad meant he was less likely to be influenced by the politicized aftermath of the January 6 attack and that a fresh mind would lean against indictments.
Bharara, who was US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on “Meet the Press” Sunday that Smith was a bad sign for Trump.
“I don’t think they would’ve left their former positions, both in government and private practice, unless there was a serious possibility that the Justice Department was on a path to charge. He thought it would happen in a month.
Legal experts say that one of the investigations may move ahead the fastest after several failed attempts by Trump in court to delay it. A judge on Monday formally dismissed Trump’s case challenging the Mar-a-Lago evidence collection and in which she had appointed a special master. That gives the Justice Department full access to tens of thousands of records and other items found among documents marked as classified in Trump’s beach club and private office.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed that no one is above the law and that investigations will go where the evidence leads. The legal process means that it would take time to prepare and conduct the trials. The prospect of a prosecution of a former president and current president is so politically explosive it would make sense for the case to be taken place before the White House race ends.
“We’re now coming up against a timeframe in which it is a challenge to finish either case, if it is brought, to finish it before the election,” said CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers on “Newsroom” on Monday.
Rodgers said that if the case could be brought on the documents side, it would probably take more time.
Smith is following legal procedures, but the political context makes it necessary for the DOJ to show Americans that they had no choice when they searched an ex-president’s home.
It is yet another reason that the turn of the year and the early months of 2023 will be a turning point for Trump and those investigating him.
The 2020 Democratic Congressional Ethics Committee Investigating the 2020 Election Plot: Apparent Testimony and Action by a Representative of the House Select Committee
The panel will hold its final public meeting on Monday, followed by the release of its full report on Wednesday. Monday’s meeting is a business meeting and no witnesses are going to testify.
Thompson had mentioned last week that the panel would be holding a hearing and releasing its final report the next day. The report could be released two days later on December 21st, if the panel follows its public meeting with it.
We think we can finish our work before that, after looking at the schedule. So why not get it to the public as quick as we can?” Bennie Thompson spoke to reporters on the steps of the Capitol.
The panel may also issue referrals to the House Ethics Committee, Federal Election Commission, and bar associations to discipline attorneys.
Congressional mechanisms could include a referral to the ethics committee. (Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the chair of the January 6 committee, has previously said the panel could issue five to six other categories of referrals besides criminal ones to the DOJ.)
The committee’s investigation has uncovered several attorneys connected to the 2020 presidential election plot, including lawyer John Eastman who pushed for the results to be overturned. Thompson was not ready to rule anyone out.
“Any officer of the court who disrespects the ethics of a proceeding has to be reviewed as part of the committee’s discussions”, Thompson said earlier this month. As a person who would consider a lawyer to have the highest ethical standards, I would have real issue with them not respecting those standards.
The final report could be about eight chapters long and 1,000 pages long according to Thompson. By year end, the committee also plans to share transcripts from the more than 1,000 witnesses it interviewed.
The final committee report could include additional charges proposed for Trump, according to the source. The justification will explain why the charges were recommended.
The recommendations match the allegations the House select committee made against Trump and his elections attorney John Eastman in a previous court proceeding seeking Eastman’s emails.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, criticized the committee in a statement as a “Kangaroo court” that held “show trials by Never Trump partisans who are a stain on this country’s history.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the committee, told CNN’s Jake Tapper Friday that the panel has “been very careful in crafting these recommendations and tethering them to the facts that we’ve uncovered.”
“We spent a huge amount of time not just on what the code sections are and the bottom line recommendation, but the facts – and I think it’s really important when we discuss whatever it is we are going to do and we’ll have a vote on it, that people understand the facts behind the conclusions we reach,” the California Democrat said on “The Lead.”
The Select Committee on Investigating House Rules of Procedure in the Light of a Subpoena-Independent Report on Pro-Trump Propagation
Criminal statutes related to the violence, obstructing a congressional proceeding, and seditious conspiracy have largely been the focus of the Justice Department.
The committee will release an executive summary of the investigation’s report on Monday after the meeting, a committee aide said Sunday. The final report, to be released two days later, will provide justification from the panel’s investigation for recommending the charges.
The meeting on Monday ended nearly two years of investigation into what led to a mob of pro- Trump supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol.
The select committee is looking at how to hold accountable GOP lawmakers who violate subpoenas, according to Rep. Adam Schiff.
“We will also be considering what’s the appropriate remedy for members of Congress who ignore a congressional subpoena, as well as the evidence that was so pertinent to our investigation and why we wanted to bring them in,” the California Democrat told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
The impact of House referrals may not be known as the Department of Justice special counsel investigation is already examining Trump.
“Censure was something that we have considered. Ethics referrals is something we have considered,” Schiff said Sunday, noting that the committee will disclose its decision Monday.
The January 6 Committee on Interactions of the House and the Judiciary Committees: What you need to know, and what you can do about it
“This is someone who, in multiple ways, tried to pressure state officials to find votes that didn’t exist. This is someone who tried to disrupt a joint session and encouraged a mob to attack the Capitol. If that’s not criminal, then I don’t know what is,” he added.
Schiff declined to comment on the specific charges the committee is planning to refer to the Justice Department as it relates to the former president, but he made clear he thinks Trump violated multiple criminal statutes, including one for insurrection.
The president has broken a lot of criminal laws. You have to be prosecuted for breaking the law if you are to be treated like any other American who has broken the law.
We don’t know exactly what the January 6 committee will bring, but here are some things that you need to know.
An announcement of at least three criminal charges against former President Donald Trump will be made at the public meeting on Monday.
But whether the department brings charges will depend on whether the facts and the evidence support a prosecution, Attorney General Merrick Garland has said. Garland will make the ultimate call on charging decisions.
A referral to the House for an insurrection charge would be a more aggressive move. It’s a crime to assist or engage in “in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws.” The January 6 attack on Congress has been described by judges as “insurrection”.
“That will be something we will be considering tomorrow,” Schiff added, noting that the panel has weighed whether it is better to criminally refer members of Congress to other parts of the federal government or if Congress should “police its own.”
But any move by the January 6 panel to approve a referral would be largely symbolic because a referral by no means obligates federal prosecutors to bring such a case.
The Investigating Committee on Investigations of the January 6 Decrees of Donald J. Trump and a Republican Congressional Activist
With the federal investigation now being led by special counsel Jack Smith, it appears Justice Department investigators are already looking at much of the conduct that the select committee has highlighted.
An obstruction of an official proceeding, insurrection, and conspiracy to defraud the federal government are some of the things a source knows about.
For the latter two, the lawmakers can rely on an opinion from a federal judge in California, who wrote earlier this year that there was evidence that Trump and his allies were plotting to defraud the US government and to obstruct an official proceeding. The opinion was handed down by US District Judge David O. Carter in a dispute over whether the House could access certain emails sent to and from former Trump attorney John Eastman.
Through blockbuster hearings, interviews with some of the former president’s closest allies and court battles to free up documents, the committee sought to tell the definitive narrative of what happened in the lead up to and on January 6.
He said any referrals presented on Monday would include supporting evidence and that individuals will not be named to more than one category. Monday’s meeting will also include a public presentation that summarizes the panel’s work.
Adam Kinzinger told CNN that it would be good if the last thing he did was less dramatic, but he emphasized that the report will be one.
“[Trump] tried to take away the voice of the American people in choosing their president and replace the will of the voters with his will to remain in power,” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in an October hearing. He is the person who tells the story of what happened on January 6.
Why does this matter? This is the culmination of a lengthy investigation into the attack on Jan. 6. The committee is also expected to provide its assessment of some of the weaknesses in the electoral system, which members argued enabled Trump and his allies to go as far as they did in their attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The Electoral Count Act should be reformed according to policy recommendations made by the panel.
At the end of this Congress, the select committee will be dissolved. Several members of the panel will not return to the House in 2023. They are: Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Democratic Reps. Elaine Luria of Virginia and Stephanie Murphy of Florida.
A member of the committee, Elaine Luria, told NPR she was shocked by the plan to create a big lie and pull every lever of government to corrupt an election.
“We’ve seen petty criminals who’ve been charged with misdemeanors for trespassing be held accountable, but not the masterminds of this, who really did try to corrupt the government and its processes,” Luria said.
“We don’t plan on piling on existing prosecutions,” Representative Jamie Raskin said. “We’re wanting to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks and the crimes of the most serious gravity are attended to.”
The Jan 6 Ethics Committee is About to Have Its Last Hearing Hear What to Expect and When to Call a Law Enforcement Committee on Election Defamation
The committee has laid out evidence against the people who pushed the strategy of derailing the election.
New York Democratic Rep.-elect Dan Goldman, a former House impeachment lawyer, said the panel could have criminal evidence that the Justice Department would not have without a referral. Goldman suggested that the panel might consider referrals for witness intimidation, obstruction of justice and false statements made under oath.
Goldman said that they wanted to make sure the Department of Justice evaluated all of the evidence they had uncovered and included everything in their deliberations about whether or not to bring charges.
NPR obtained a small portion of a draft script for the Monday meeting that shows the panel intends to accuse lawyers John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro of being tied to the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Eastman was a Trump ally who helped lead the effort to overturn President Biden’s win, while Chesebro has been considered a central figure in the scheme pushing for a slate of fake Trump electors in various states won by Biden.
“They could be subject of both criminal referrals, but also referrals to their state bar association to review whether or not they should continue to have their bar license if they are making blatant misrepresentations in court filings or otherwise,” Goldman said.
But with the congressional session wrapping up in a matter of weeks and Republicans about to take control of the House, it’s unlikely the ethics panel will launch any new probe.
When asked at a press conference last week if he was concerned that he and his colleagues might face criminal referrals, McCarthy said, “No, not at all. We didn’t do anything wrong.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/19/1143415487/the-jan-6-committee-is-about-to-have-its-last-hearing-heres-what-to-expect
Charged Incriminants in the Washington Post-Atlas Synody on December 9, 2015 at the Centre for Investigating Pedestrian Propagation
More than 900 people have been charged with crimes related to the attack. The District of Columbia has had its share of alleged rioters arrested by law enforcement.