Jan. 6 committee votes to refer Trump to DOJ on multiple criminal charges

Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee, issued a scathing rebuke of former President Donald Trump during her opening remarks on Monday, saying he is unfit for office based on his actions regarding Jan. 6 insurrection. 

“At the beginning of our investigation, we understood that tens of millions of Americans had been persuaded by President Trump that the 2020 election was stolen by overwhelming fraud. And we also knew this was flatly false. We knew that dozens of state and federal judges had addressed and resolved all manner of allegations about the election,” Cheney said. “Our legal system functioned as it should. But our president would not accept the outcome. Among the most shameful of this committee's findings was that President Trump sat in the dining room off the Oval Office watching the violent riot at the Capitol on television.” 

She went on to describe how Trump was unmoved by “urgent pleas” from people around him to “issue a public statement instructing his supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol," even as rioters attacked law enforcement officials and halted the electoral count. 

“In addition to being unlawful as described in our report, this was an utter moral failure, and a clear dereliction of duty,” Cheney added. 

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on the US Capitol, said the guarantee of the peaceful transfer of power is "at the heart of our Republic."

She added: "Trumbull called this 'one of the highest moral lessons ever given the world.' With this noble act, George Washington established the indispensable example of the peace transfer of power in our nation."

She traced this orderly transfer of power through every president of the United States until former President Donald Trump refused his constitutional duty.

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Jan. 6 committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson said that the future of democracy rests on the hands of the American public during his opening statement at Monday's public meeting.

He also thanked the American public for tuning into the committee's hearings and said that he hoped that the evidence presented lived up to their expectations.

"I'm grateful to the millions of you who followed this committee's work. I hope we lived up to our commitment to present the facts — and let the facts speak for themselves," Thompson said.

He continued, "Let me say in closing, the women and men seated around me on this dais are public servants in the most genuine sense. They put aside politician and partisanship, to ensure the success of this committee, and providing answers to the American people."

Thompson specifically thanked Republican Rep. Liz Cheney for her participation. "I especially want to thank and acknowledge our vice chair, who has become a true partner in this bipartisan effort, Ms. Cheney of Wyoming."

Jan. 6 committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson said the panel's findings show that former President Donald Trump was responsible for the insurrection at the US Capitol and that there is still "reckoning" left to do, nearly two years later.

"We remain in strange and uncharted waters," Thompson said, as the committee comes to the close.

In opening statements to the committee's final public session, Thompson said Americans show faith in elected officials that they will abide by laws and uphold elected results.

“If the faith is broken, so is our democracy," he said. “Donald Trump broke that faith. He lost the 2020 election and knew it, but he chose to try to stay in office through a multi-part scheme to overturn the results and block the transfer of power."

“In the end, he summoned a mob to Washington,” he said, adding that their findings show Trump knew they were “armed and angry.”

Thompson said the committee intends to make the bulk of its results public in the form of its final report, expected to be released Wednesday.

Along with adopting its final report on Monday, the committee is also expected to announce it will refer at least three criminal charges against Trump to the Justice Department, including insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the federal government, CNN previously reported.

"So, today, beyond our findings, we will also show that evidence we've gathered points to further action beyond the power of this committee, or the Congress, to help ensure accountability under law," he added.

"Accountability that can only be found in the criminal justice system. We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice," he said.

Thompson didn’t announce the criminal referrals in his opening statement but said that the panel has “every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a road map to justice, and that the agencies and institutions responsible for ensuring justice under the law will use the information we’ve provided to aid in their work.”

CNN's Jeremy Herb contributed reporting to this post.

House select committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson told CNN that the Jan. 6 committee will send the criminal referrals to the Justice Department “shortly after we take care of business today.”

There are “no plans” as of yet to meet with special counsel Jack Smith, he added.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection has begun its final public meeting.

The panel is expected to announce criminal referrals to the Justice Department and Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, has said the panel will approve its final report at the meeting. It won’t be made public until Wednesday. Members of the committee have promised to release the report before the end of the year since Republicans are expected to dissolve the panel when they take over the House in January.

The meeting — which, unlike previous gatherings of the committee, is not a hearing with witnesses — will include a presentation and cover the names of people facing criminal and other referrals, as will as the basis for those referrals, Thompson said last week.

CNN previously reported the committee will refer at least three criminal charges against former President Donald Trump to the DOJ, including insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the federal government. The panel has also weighed criminal referrals for a number of Trump’s closest allies.

The committee has been investigating the events on and leading up to the insurrection since the panel was formed in July 2021.

The Jan. 6 committee’s expected referrals to the Justice Department alleging Donald Trump committed at least three crimes includes one for insurrection, sources have told CNN. 

The Civil War-era law has rarely been used, and it's one prosecutors have viewed as problematic in their Jan. 6 investigations.

Justice Department prosecutors have weighed using the statute in their investigations of hundreds of people so far charged in the US Capitol attack. 

But no one has been charged with insurrection. 

An official involved in some of the internal decisions on Jan. 6 says officials viewed the insurrection law as challenging because there’s very little case law, raising the likelihood that prosecution could fail.

Prosecutors have instead chosen another rarely used law: seditious conspiracy.

A Washington jury convicted members of the Oath Keepers of seditious conspiracy last month.

The other possible referrals against Trump, obstruction of a congressional proceeding and defrauding the US government are more commonly prosecuted.

The House Jan. 6 select committee has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, including several within former President Donald Trump's orbit, CNN's Pamela Brown reports.

In this Magic Wall segment, Brown highlights the key witnesses linked to the former president including Bill Barr, Ivanka Trump and Pat Cipollone.

Watch:

The House select committee investigating the US Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, will soon hold its last public meeting, marking the end of an expansive investigation that has spanned more than 17 months, encompassed more than 1,000 interviews and culminated in accusations that former President Donald Trump and his closest allies sought to overthrow the 2020 presidential election and stop the peaceful transfer of power.

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 Jan. 6.

On Monday, members are expected to vote on its final report – spanning hundreds of pages and encapsulating its key findings, which will be released to the public on Wednesday – as well as present criminal referrals it plans to make to the Justice Department. This meeting will be the panel’s last message to the public, and members are seeking to end on a powerful note.

The charges the panel is considering asking DOJ to pursue include multiple against Trump, such as obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the federal government, a source familiar with the matter tells CNN.

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.

The final House report could include additional charges proposed for Trump, according to the source. It will provide justification from the committee investigation for recommending the charges.

The panel is considering criminal referrals for at least four individuals in addition to Trump, CNN has reported: former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Eastman, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who leads the Jan. 6 subcommittee tasked with presenting recommendations on criminal referrals to the full panel, recently said that “the gravest offense in constitutional terms is the attempt to overthrow a presidential election and bypass the constitutional order. Subsidiary to all of that are a whole host of statutory offenses, which support the gravity and magnitude of that violent assault on America.”

Raskin, along with Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren, both of California, and the panel’s vice chair, GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, comprised the subcommittee tasked with providing the full panel with referral recommendations that will be adopted on Monday.