The January 6 panel voted to urge the DOJ to prosecute Trump on at least three criminal charges

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To justify inciting the riot, the report cited a ruling by US District Court Judge Amit Mehtas in February that said Trump’s language may have incited the violence in Jan. 6, 2021, when mobs of his supporters besieged the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt congressional certification of his loss to Joe Biden. The report also cited the Senate’s 57 votes in the final year of the impeachment trial, Trump’s second, to convict him on a sedition charge passed by the House.

The select panel’s report also states that, in order to violate the insurrection law, Trump does not need an express agreement with the rioters but rather, only need to provide assistance or comfort to them.

A spokesman for the select committee declined to comment.

A Trump spokesman denounced the committee’s plans.

The January 6th un-Select Committee conducted show trials of Never Trump partisans that stain the history of this country, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement. This Kangaroo court is nothing more than a Hollywood executives vanity documentary project that insults the intelligence of the American people and makes a mockery of our democracy.

The DOJ, which is already conducting a criminal investigation of actions related to Trumps January 6, is not required to consider the referrals from Congress, which have no legal weight. However, the select committee plans to act in hopes that lawmakers’ input will influence prosecutorial decision-making. Panel chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) also raised the possibility of referrals to outside entities such as bar associations for the constellation of attorneys involved in the election subversion effort.

The panel of lawmakers debated the value of the referrals along the conclusion of their investigation. But in recent days, they’ve turned the referrals into a game for history and emphasized their symbolic nature, regardless of what the DOJ or other entities might do.

The massive cache of evidence the panel plans to release next week, including transcripts of more than 1,000 witness interviews, could prove a more significant development by helping federal prosecutors determine which which leads to surveillance and which witnesses may commit the crimes themselves.

During its investigation, the committee interviewed nearly every member of Trumps inner circle from his White House counsel Pat Cipollone to attorney Rudy Giuliani to his children Ivanka and Donald Jr. They interviewed members of Trumps Secret Service detail, campaign team, attorneys and White House staff. And while some key witnesses pleaded to the Fifth or sought privileges that the committee could not pierce, many provided extraordinary evidence of Trumps plot.

The panel has been declaring for months that Trump deliberately spread false statements about the results of the election to increase the transfer of power to Joe Biden. In the exciting weeks following the Nov. 3, 2020, they say Trump systematically pressured state and local government officials, the Justice Department and his own vice president to help him seize the second term he never won. When those efforts failed, they said he used the presence of a mob he knew was armed to attempt to derail Congress’ election certification.

The panel also contended that Trump falsely signed court documents that proved evidence of election fraud that he said was inaccurate and that he incited a crowd at a Jan. 6 rally by telling them to march on Capitol and fight like hell. Amid the mob attack on the Capitol, they said Trump incited more violence by tweeting an attack on then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was fleeing from the mob at that moment. And as the attack continued and allies pleaded with him to intervene, Trump refused to directly tell the mob to leave.

Instead, he continued to watch the attack on television and contacted allies to continue strategizing ways to stay in power.

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