The January 6 Select Committee has wrapped up its investigations. At its final meeting on Monday, the committee voted to refer four criminal charges against Donald Trump, requesting that the Department of Justice investigate.
The committee believes that it has sufficient evidence for criminal charges for "influencing or impeding an official proceeding of the US government," "conspiring to defraud the US," "unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government," and "assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States." They also referred four Republicans, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Scott Perry (Pa.), and Andy Biggs (Ariz.)to the House Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee will be controlled by Republicans when they take control of the House in January, meaning that this referral will probably go nowhere.
On Wednesday, the committee is expected to release a 1,000-page report detailing all the events before, during, and after the attack on the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
In most cases, criminal referral charges are ignored by the Department of Justice. Since the DOJ already has a serious case regarding classified documents ongoing against former President Trump, Attorney General Merrick Garland is unlikely to complicate that by adding these new charges.
The report may, however, deliver new evidence to the DOJ to use in cases against other officials who were involved in those events as they have gathered thousands of hours of interviews with White House staff.
The significance of the report and the criminal referrals are mostly symbolic. The details in the report will likely have their greatest import as a detailed record of the events of that day, in the words of people who were there.
Image by US Government - https://www.facebook.com/January6thCmte/photos/a.103730431997154/103731298663734/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=108426984
Bob Peryea
National Correspondent
The Kentucky Daily