CNN
—
The House select committee investigating is expected on January 6, 2021 to announce that it will refer at least three criminal charges against former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department, including sedition, obstruction of official proceedings and conspiracy to defraud the government federal, as reported. a knowledgeable source on the subject.
The committee’s final recommendations could include proposed additional charges against Trump, the source said. The referral recommendations will be presented at a committee meeting on Monday and the final report will provide a rationale for the panel’s investigation in recommending the charges.
The impact the House referrals could have remains unclear because the Justice Department’s special counsel investigation is already examining Trump in its sprawling Jan. 6 probe. But in addition to the criminal referrals, committee chairman Bennie Thompson told reporters the panel could issue five or six more. categories of referrals, such as ethics referrals to the House Ethics Committee, attorney discipline referrals, and campaign finance referrals.
Collection recommendations under consideration of obstruction of official proceedings and conspiracy to defraud the federal government party allegations the select committee made against Trump and his campaign lawyer John Eastman in an earlier court proceeding seeking Eastman’s emails. A judge had agreed with the House, finding that he could access Eastman’s emails about his 2020 campaign work for Trump because the pair likely planned to defraud the US and engage in a conspiracy to obstruct Congress, according to this judicial procedure.
The Guardian was the first to report on the committee’s consideration of the charges.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung blasted the committee in a statement as a “kangaroo court” that held “trials of Never Trump supporters that are a stain on the history of this country.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the committee, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday that the panel “has been very careful in crafting these recommendations and tying them to the facts that we’ve uncovered.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time not just on what the sections of the code are and the substantive recommendation, but on the facts, and I think it’s very important when we talk about what we’re going to do and we’re going to have a vote on that, that people understand the facts behind the conclusions we reach,” the California Democrat told “The Lead.”
The Justice Department has focused heavily on criminal statutes related to violence, obstruction of Congress, and in some cases limited to seditious conspiracy, when charging defendants in connection with the attack on the U.S. Capitol .
The committee will hold its final public meeting Monday, and the panel’s full report will be released Wednesday, according to Thompson. The Mississippi Democrat said the group will approve its final report Monday and make announcements about criminal referrals to the Justice Department, but the public won’t see the final report until two days later.
CNN previously reported that the panel has also weighed the criminal references of some of Trump’s closest allies, including Eastman, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, according to multiple sources.
Another source warned at the time that while names were being considered, there was still some discussion before the names were finalized.
This story has been updated with additional news.
CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to reflect that The Guardian first reported the consideration of charges.
