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

For months, the Jan. 6 committee went back-and-forth over whether it would refer former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. On Monday, the committee didn’t equivocate.

The committee referred Trump to the DOJ on at least four criminal charges, including:

The panel said in its executive summary that it had evidence of possible charges of conspiring to injure or impede an officer and seditious conspiracy.

So what is a criminal referral? A referral represents a recommendation that the Justice Department investigate and look at charging the individuals in question. The House committee’s final report – to be released Wednesday – will provide justification from the panel’s investigation for recommending the charges.

In practice, the referral is effectively a symbolic measure. It does not require the Justice Department to act, and regardless, Attorney General Merrick Garland has already appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to take on two investigations related to Trump, including the Jan. 6 investigation.

But the formal criminal referrals and the unveiling of its report this week underscore how much the Jan. 6 committee dug up and revealed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the lead-up to Jan. 6. Now the ball is in the Justice Department’s court.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said during Monday's meeting that he 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.”

After the panel's meeting, Thompson told CNN that the evidence that supports the panel's decision to refer Trump to the DOJ is "clear," adding that he is "convinced" that the department will ultimately charge Trump.

CNN's Tierney Sneed contributed reporting to this post.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who serves on the subcommittee of the Jan. 6 select committee responsible for presenting criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, laid out how panel members arrived at the decisions presented during Monday's final public session.

Asked about process offenses, such as witness tampering or perjury, Raskin said “as evidence is assembled about that, I hope that those will be charged as well. You cannot suborn perjury, you cannot obstruct justice, you cannot interfere with a congressional proceeding.” However, Raskin did not specify who these potential charges related to in the panel’s investigation. 

In terms of unanswered questions left by the committee, Raskin was asked if the panel ever solved the situation with the pipe bombs on Jan. 6 and said, “I don’t believe there have been any updates since we first looked int to. Those are unsolved crimes.”

Check out photos from the last Jan. 6 hearings here.

Jan. 6 committee members, Reps. Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff, explained that more associates of former President Donald Trump were not directly referred to the Department of Justice because the committee wanted to focus on those with “abundant evidence” against them.

Raskin noted that the DOJ will receive the full report and can decide if anyone else discussed merits further investigation.

“We wanted to proceed in such a way that we could all feel certain that these were people where evidence exists that they engaged in criminal offenses against our country,” he added.

Schiff said, “The long and the short of it is we possess evidence that up until this release, the Justice Department may not have, they possess evidence that we don't have, and the cumulative impact of all that evidence will hopefully lead to justice for those that have broken the law here.”

Raskin promised that they would cooperate with the Justice Department “quickly," while Schiff added that the committee expects evidence will start to be made available to both the DOJ and the public starting Wednesday.

Asked to explain why those four House Republicans were referred to House Ethics in particular, Schiff pointed out that these four failed to comply with a congressional subpoena, which is easier to prove.

After extensive investigation, the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol held its final public meeting Monday where they voted on their final report and approved a series of criminal referrals — including against former President Donald Trump and others in his orbit.

The final report is expected to be released publicly Wednesday.

Here are the key things that happened at the committee’s last public session:

As the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 riot held its last public meeting, the room was packed.

Law enforcement officers who testified at the panel’s first public hearing last July about the violence they experienced defending the US Capitol on Jan. 6 sat in the front row, as they have for every public event the committee has had.

Those officers include: US Capitol Police (USCP) officer Harry Dunn, former Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, former USCP Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges.

Fanone sat in the audience as the panel replayed his testimony about being attacked as the riot unfolded.

A number of committee staff and investigators — and even former GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock, who has publicly supported the panel’s work — were in the audience as well. 

The meeting took place in the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Caucus Room which was recently renamed to honor House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who stepping down as speaker at the end of the this Congress.

In previous hearings, it was typical to see a committee staffer sitting at the dais with the members. But for today’s meeting, it was just the nine committee members at the dais, each taking turns speaking.

The White House said the Jan. 6 committee has been doing “important bipartisan work,” but declined to offer any new response after the committee held its final public meeting on Monday. 

Jean-Pierre said the committee had “been doing important bipartisan work to get to the truth of what happened on that very day so we can make sure that that doesn't happen again.” 

Pressed for a response on referrals to the House Ethics Committee for four Republican members of Congress, Jean-Pierre declined to give a direct response from the White House.

“You would have to ask those, those very Republicans... to speak for their own actions here and have them explain themselves,” she said.

Jan. 6 committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson said the evidence that supports the panel's decision to refer former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department for several criminal charges is "clear," adding that he is "convinced" that the DOJ will ultimately charge Trump.

"The committee looked at it long and hard, and from my vantage point, we couldn't do anything except make the referral," Thompson told CNN after Monday's meeting, acknowledging the unprecedented nature of the referral.

"It was clear in the evaluation of the evidence uncovered by our committee that those actions taken by the president... former President Trump, clearly created a problem for this country," he added.

The committee also voted to approve its final report which will be released to the public Wednesday. That report will contain most of the evidence from the 17-month long investigation — including full transcripts from more than 1,000 interviews.

"We think it's important for the Justice Department to look at that body of information that we put together," he said.

Watch:

Trump “minimized the seriousness of the attack” in the days following the riot, Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Elaine Luria said, specifically citing testimony that Trump's former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway gave to the committee. 

Asked to describe her conversation with Trump the day after the riot, Conway, said she didn't think it was very long. “I don’t think it was very long. I just said that was just a terrible day.” 

Trump, Conway said, responded to her saying, "These people are upset. They’re very upset.”  

CNN previously reported that Trump similarly described rioters as being “upset” during a heated phone call he had with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy while the insurrection was underway, claiming the rioters cared more about the election results than the California Republican did. 

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy. 

Trump’s comment set off what GOP lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told Trump the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked, “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.