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

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has concluded that former President Donald Trump was ultimately responsible for the insurrection, laying out for the public and the Justice Department a trove of evidence for why he should be prosecuted for multiple crimes.

The summary describes in extensive detail how Trump tried to overpower, pressure and cajole anyone who wasn’t willing to help him overturn his election defeat — while knowing that many of his schemes were unlawful. His relentless arm-twisting included election administrators in key states, senior Justice Department leaders, state lawmakers, and others. The report even suggests possible witness tampering with the committee’s investigation.

The committee repeatedly uses forceful language to describe Trump’s intent: that he “purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud” in order to aid his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and to successfully solicit about $250 million in political contributions. “These false claims provoked his supporters to violence on January 6th.”

The full report, based on 1,000-plus interviews, documents collected including emails, texts, phone records and a year and a half of investigation by the nine-member bipartisan committee, will be released Wednesday, along with along with transcripts and other materials collected in the investigation.

Here are some key things from the report summary:

Committee referring Trump and others to DOJ: The House committee lays out a number of criminal statutes it believes were violated in the plots to stave off Trump’s defeat and says there’s evidence for criminal referrals to the Justice Department for Trump, Trump attorney John Eastman and “others.”

The report summary says there’s evidence to pursue Trump on multiple crimes, including obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make false statements, assisting or aiding an insurrection, conspiring to injure or impede an officer and seditious conspiracy.

Trump's false victory was "premeditated": The committee outlines 17 findings from its investigation that underpin its reasoning for criminal referrals, including that Trump knew the fraud allegations he was pushing were false and continued to amplify them anyway.

Several members of Congress being referred to House Ethics Committee: The select committee is referring several Republican lawmakers who refused to cooperate with the investigation to the House Ethics Committee.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, as well as Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona, could all face possible sanctions for their refusal to comply with committee subpoenas.

The Jan. 6 committee voted to approve its final report and criminal referrals against former President Donald Trump Monday.

While the full report won't be available to the public until Wednesday, the panel released an executive summary following its meeting.

The summary describes in extensive detail how Trump tried to overpower, pressure and cajole anyone who wasn’t willing to help him overturn his election defeat – while knowing that many of his schemes were unlawful. 

Read the executive summary here:

The House select committee is referring four members of Congress to the House’s Ethics Committee after those members did not comply with the subpoenas from the panel.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, who announced the referrals at Monday’s public meeting, said they were being referred for “appropriate sanction by the House Ethics Committee for failure to comply with lawful subpoenas.” 

An executive summary released after the meeting identifies the four Republicans as: GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.

CNN has reached out to all four GOP members who were referred to House Ethics for defying the committee's subpoenas.

“This is just another partisan and political stunt made by a Select Committee that knowingly altered evidence, blocked minority representation on a Committee for the first time in the history of the US House of Representatives, and failed to respond to Mr. Jordan’s numerous letters and concerns surrounding the politicization and legitimacy of the Committee’s work," Russell Dye, spokesperson for Rep. Jim Jordan, told CNN.

The House Jan. 6 committee voted Monday to approve its historic final committee report and refer former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department on multiple criminal charges for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. 

The committee voted unanimously at the end of its final public meeting Monday to adopt the report and criminal referrals for Trump and others. The final report won't be released publicly until Wednesday.

The committee referred Trump to the Justice Department for obstructing an official proceeding, defrauding the US, making false statements and giving aid or comfort to an insurrection, the panel said Monday.

The committee said at Monday's hearing that there is sufficient evidence to refer Trump on those four potential crimes.

The committee said it was also advancing criminal referrals for attorney John Eastman and "others" to the Justice Department for investigation and potential prosecution.

There is evidence to justify an Eastman referral to DOJ on obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, the committee said Monday. Raskin said that the committee believed the conduct of others may also warrant Justice Department investigation and prosecution, but those referrals were not identified on Monday.

"Our report describes in detail the actions of numerous co-conspirators who agreed with, and participated in, Trump’s plan to impair, obstruct and defeat the certification of President Biden’s electoral victory," Raskin said.

"That said, the subcommittee does not attempt to determine all of the potential participants in this conspiracy, as our understanding of the role of many individuals may be incomplete even today because they refused to answer our questions. We trust that the Department of Justice will be able to form a more complete picture through its investigation."

In the lead up to Jan. 6, 2021, then-President Donald Trump ignored warnings from advisors about the potential for violence and rejected any suggestion that he should explicitly tell supporters to be peaceful, Rep. Stephanie Murphy said Monday. 

Murphy pointed to a text message exchange provided to the committee by Hope Hicks, Trump's former communications director. In the exchange, Hicks and then White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley discussed getting Trump to tweet out a message to his supporters. Gidley texted Hicks that Trump “really should tweet something about Being NON-violent.”  

Hicks responded that she had already “suggested it several times” without success. 

“Mr. Herschmann said that he had made the same recommendation directly to the President and that he had refused,” Hicks said in her interview with the committee, a video of which was played Monday. 

Despite his staff’s warnings, Murphy said, Trump took to the stage on Jan. 6, 2021, and encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell,” and sent them marching to the Capitol building. 

The House Select Committee announced at Monday’s meeting it was recommending criminal referrals to the Justice Department as part of its investigation into Jan. 6.

“Ours is not a system of justice where foot soldiers go to jail and the masterminds and ringleaders get a free pass,” said Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat who sits on the committee.

The committee chose to advance referrals because of “where the gravity of the specific offense, the severity of its actual harm, and the centrality of the offender to the overall design of the unlawful scheme to overthrow the election, compel us to speak,” he added. 

As a starting point, the committee relied on opinions issued by a federal judge in California, who determined emails to and from Trump attorney John Eastman showed evidence of a crime. That legal ruling allowed the committee to pierce the privileges that typically would have shielded them from view. 

“The judge concluded that both former President Donald Trump and John Eastman likely violated two federal criminal statutes,” Raskin said. 

Watch:

The Jan. 6 committee is outlining criminal referral it plans to make against former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department and other officials.

CNN previously reported the committee would refer at least three criminal charges against Trump to the DOJ, including insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the federal government.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chair of the committee, told CNN last week that a subcommittee of members would make recommendations to the full committee about various referrals.

The full committee is now expected to vote on adopting the subcommittee’s recommendations.

Remember: 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.

But any move by the Jan. 6 panel to approve a referral would be largely symbolic because a referral by no means obligates federal prosecutors to bring such a case. With the federal investigation now being led by special counsel Jack Smith, it appears Justice Department investigators are already looking at much of the conduct that the select committee has highlighted.

House Jan. 6 committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren revealed during Monday's public meeting that an unnamed lawyer appeared to have attempted to shape the testimony of one witness in a way that could help Donald Trump.

Lofgren noted a lawyer suggested that the witness not share some memories during her testimony to the committee, that she couldn't learn who was paying for her lawyer, and that Trump-allied entities offered to keep her under their wing as her testimony neared.  

As it became clear what the witness would say, Lofgren added, the job offers evaporated.

Lofgren didn't name the lawyer or the female witness, and it's not clear if all of the examples are about one witness. 

It's not unusual or illegal for lawyers to take money from motivated backers to pay for witnesses to be represented. But lawyers must follow strict ethics guidelines, governed by their state bars and enforced by the courts. The House select committee previously shared their concerns about potential witness influence with the Justice Department. 

In a new video clip played by the House Jan. 6 committee, Hope Hicks, who previously served as a top aide to former President Donald Trump, referenced the baseless claims of election fraud and said: “I was becoming increasingly concerned that ... we were damaging his legacy.”

Trump "said something along the lines of, you know, ‘Nobody will care about my legacy if I lose, so that won’t matter. The only thing that matters is winning,’” Hicks said in the clip.

The committee played the clip after Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren said Trump was repeatedly told there was no evidence to back up his false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, and the panel “has obtained testimony from new witnesses who have come forward to tell us about their conversations with ex-President Trump on this topic.”

“Donald Trump knowingly and corruptly repeated election fraud lies, which incited his supporters to violence on Jan. 6. He continues to repeat his meritless claim that the election was stolen even today, and continues to erode our most cherished and shared belief in free and fair elections,” Lofgren later continued.