Jan. 6 committee to vote on referring Trump for criminal charges

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is set to vote to refer criminal charges against a former president to the Justice Department for the first time in American history on Monday, concluding an 18-month examination of the insurrection that shook the country’s free and fair election system.

The criminal and civil referrals will precede the release of a final report compiled by the committee that will tell the most comprehensive story to date of the events leading up to the attack and Donald Trump’s role in fomenting it.

The committee is expected to vote on referring Trump for three charges: obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the United States and insurrection. Politico first reported that the three charges would be considered by the panel.

Outside of Trump, it is still unknown what other criminal referrals the committee will make to the Justice Department. A person familiar with the proposed recommendations said that the central actors who aided Trump in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election will be called out by name during Monday’s hearing, but it was unclear whether the committee would formally refer them for prosecution.

While referrals hold no legal weight, people familiar with the committee’s deliberations said the panel intended to make a strong statement about the need to hold accountable those responsible for inciting the Capitol assault — Trump especially.

“They should never be in a position of public trust again,” said a person involved with the committee’s work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.

The committee will vote on the referrals in a public hearing expected to begin Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

The report — at least some of which is likely to be released Monday — is expected to largely mirror the set of public hearings presented by the committee over the summer. It will be bolstered by additional evidence and information that had been omitted from previous presentations or was collected by investigators since the hearings ended, according to people involved with the committee’s work.

“The report will essentially be a summary but with a lot more detail than we were able to do in the public hearings and with direct references to transcripts and evidence,” said a person familiar with the drafting of the final report.

The Washington Post reported last month about widespread frustration among former and current committee staffers with the push by Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) to drop non-Trump related findings from the final report and her sway over the committee’s final product.

Much of the report — expected to have eight chapters — is focused on Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But there will be sections and appendixes on other matters, including the fundraising that candidates conducted on the false premise that the election had been stolen, people familiar with the matter say.

Committee members have agreed to make all evidence and transcripts of depositions publicly available, according to people familiar with the deliberations, though they are likely to be released days after the report.

Of particular importance will be any evidence that either corroborates or undercuts the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump aide who made explosive claims.

Those revelations included that she had been told that Trump tried to take the wheel of the presidential SUV from his Secret Service detail as he sought to continue onward to the Capitol after giving a speech at the Ellipse on Jan. 6. She also testified that she had come across the aftermath of an apparent outburst by the president that resulted in a smashed plate and ketchup dripping down a White House wall.

The committee’s dwindling staff, along with members, have worked overtime in recent weeks to redact any sensitive information, like names of witnesses who provided depositions on the condition of anonymity and potential intelligence that could jeopardize national security.

Other government agencies have also prepared for the release of the report. Officials in the Department of Homeland Security, for example, have been reviewing the transcripts of interviews with Secret Service personnel in preparation for their release to ensure that no confidential information is released.

A subcommittee made up of the panel’s four lawyers — Cheney and Reps. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) — worked to put together recommendations on potential criminal referrals and presented them to the broader committee over the past month.

Nonpartisan groups monitoring threats to democracy, such as the States United Democracy Center, have also lobbied the committee to make referrals about attorney misconduct to state bars. States United issued a letter to Cheney and Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) earlier this month recommending that the committee refer the alleged misconduct of nine attorneys involved with Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the election to state bars.

Jack Smith, the Justice Department’s special counsel investigating the plot to overturn the election, recently sent subpoenas to officials across the most closely contested battleground states asking for all correspondence with Trump or his campaign, including his lawyers.

In addition to the referrals to the Justice Department, the committee is likely to make ethics referrals for lawmakers who ignored the panel’s subpoenas.

“We’ll 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,” Schiff said during an interview Sunday on CNN. “We have weighed what is the remedy for members of Congress. Is it a criminal referral to another branch of government? Or is it better that the Congress police its own?”

The report-writing process has been marred by disagreements. Former and current staff have complained that important findings have been overlooked and deprioritized, and continue to bristle at Cheney’s influence over the final report.

Cheney has clashed with other members and staff over her desire to keep the work squarely focused on Trump, people familiar with the matter have said. She has tussled in particular with Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), retiring member.

The two sparred extensively during a member meeting on Wednesday after Cheney insulted Murphy, people familiar with the matter said. Cheney urged Murphy to take a sober approach to the issues under discussion regarding the final report, before cautioning her not to call The Post and leak the committee deliberations, according to people familiar with the exchange.

Murphy and Cheney argued during a member retreat at the Library of Congress earlier this year, with the Florida congresswoman urging that the committee do more to examine the security and intelligence failures that led to the breach of the Capitol.

Murphy and Cheney both declined to comment.

Although some have been critical of Cheney, many involved with the process credit her for the committee’s success and say the panel raised the bar for how congressional committees should operate — both in terms of the summer hearings, which were widely watched, and in distilling key elements for the final report.

“Without somebody separating the wheat from the chaff, you get an awful lot of chaff,” said a committee staffer.