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The congressional committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol referred former President Donald Trump for four criminal charges related to an insurrection that he inspired because he couldn’t publicly accept that he’d lost an election.
In the face of it all, that former president already announced he is running again to win back the job.
That’s the state of American politics, with a divided populace and millions purposely not paying attention to the evidence presented by the committee, just two weeks ahead of the two-year anniversary of the riot.
The Jan. 6 committee is out of time. Republicans are set to take control of the House, and the committee is expected to dissolve. So the legal ball will now be in the Justice Department’s court, while the political one rests with the voters.
„Accountability that can only be found in the criminal justice system,“ committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. said. „We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap 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.“
Here are five takeaways of what we learned from the committee’s last hearing on Monday:1. Trump – and others – will be referred to the Justice Department for criminal charges.
The big news out of the final hearing was that after a lengthy investigation, the members of the committee were convinced there was enough evidence to charge former President Trump on four things:
Now, that doesn’t mean Trump will be charged. The committee has no power over what the Justice Department does. The Justice Department has its own investigation of Trump that’s been ongoing and currently run by special counsel Jack Smith.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith once Trump announced he was running for president again as a way to show independence from the investigation.
„Ours is not a system of justice, where foot soldiers go to jail and the masterminds and ringleaders get a free pass,“ said committee member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., announcing the referrals.2. Members of Congress were referred to the House ethics committee.
The committee also announced that four members of Congress, who never complied with subpoenas, were referred to the House ethics committee.
They are Republican congressmen:
All are close allies of Trump, and their resistance in the face of the rules has been emblematic of the antagonistic style of U.S. politics that was growing even before Trump came on the scene.
Whether anything happens to them, though, is unclear since Republicans will control the iteration of the ethics committee in the next Congress and McCarthy is in line to be the next speaker.3. There’s lots of evidence Trump knew the truth, but just didn’t want to be seen as a loser.
All of what occurred Jan. 6 likely happened simply because Trump didn’t have an exit ramp, a way to save face after his 2020 election loss.
That’s been evident to those of us who’ve covered Trump for a while, but it was affirmed by Hope Hicks, a former communications adviser in the Trump White House, someone who was very close to Trump.
