Final panel hearing on January 6: Live updates

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WASHINGTON (AP) A House committee Jan. 6 urged the Justice Department on Monday to file criminal charges against Donald Trump for violent protests at the Capitol in 2021, calling for accountability for the former president and an era of reflection and calculation.

After one of the most exhaustive and aggressive congressional investigations in memory, the panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans recommended criminal charges against Trump and associates who helped him launch a sweeping pressure campaign to try to restore his losing the 2020 election. The panel also released a lengthy summary of its final report, with findings that Trump is engaging in a multifaceted conspiracy to thwart the will of voters.

In a final meeting on Monday, the committee cited violations of four criminal laws by Trump, both in the run-up to the riot and during the insurrection itself, as it recommended the former president for prosecution at the Justice Department. Among the charges they recommended for prosecution was aiding an insurrection in an effort to hold him directly responsible for his supporters storming the Capitol that day.

The committee also voted to refer conservative attorney John Eastman, who has made dubious legal maneuvers aimed at keeping Trump in power, for prosecution under two of the same laws as Trump: conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruct an official proceeding.

While a criminal referral is often symbolic, with the Justice Department ultimately deciding whether to prosecute Trump or others, it is a decisive end to an investigation that has had almost a single focus from the beginning.

Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said Trump has broken people’s faith when they vote in a democracy and that criminal referrals can provide a roadmap to justice by using the work of committees.

I believe that almost two years later, it is still a time of reflection and reckoning, Thompson said. If we live as a nation of laws and democracy, this will never happen again.

Wyoming Rep. said. Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice chairwoman, in her opening remarks that every president in American history has defended the smooth transition of power, except one.

The committee also voted 9-0 to approve its final report, which includes findings, interview transcripts and legislative recommendations. The full report is expected to be released on Wednesday.

The reports’ 154-page summary, which was made public at the end of the hearing, found that Trump engaged in a multi-faceted conspiracy to overthrow the election. While much of the report’s primary findings are not new, it represents one of the most damning portraits of an American president in recent history, laying out in detail Trumps extensive effort to overturn his own defeat and if what lawmakers say is his direct responsibility for the revolt of his supporters.

The panel, which will dissolve Jan. 3 with the new Republican-led House, has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, held 10 well-watched public hearings and collected more than a million documents since it was launched in July 2021. As as it amassed a massive trove of evidence, members became emboldened to declare that Trump, a Republican, was responsible for the violent attack on the Capitol by his supporters nearly two years ago.

After defeating the police, injuring many of them, rioters on January 6 stormed the Capitol and tore down Biden’s presidential election victory certification, citing Trump’s lies about widespread election fraud and sending lawmakers and others running for their lives.

The attack came after weeks of Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat in a campaign that was extensively detailed by the committee in its many public hearings, and was laid out again by lawmakers on the panel at Monday’s meeting. Many of Trump’s former aides testified about his unprecedented pressure on states, federal officials and Pence to oppose Biden’s win. The committee also described in detail how Trump riled up people at a rally that morning and then did little to restrain his supporters for hours as he watched the violence unfold on television.

The panel released some new evidence at the meeting, including a recent interview with longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks. Describing a conversation she had with Trump at the time, she said he told her that no one would care about her legacy if she lost the election.

Hicks told the committee that Trump told him, The only thing that matters is winning.

Trumps campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the former president blasted committee members on Sunday as thugs and scoundrels as he continued to argue that he would lose in 2020.

Although a so-called criminal referral has no real legal standing, it is a powerful statement by the committee and adds to the political pressure already on Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith, who are conducting the investigation into January 6 and Trump’s actions. .

In recommending that Trump be charged with aiding an insurrection, the committee said in summary reports that the former president was directly responsible for calling what turned into a violent mob and rejected repeated pleas from to his aides to condemn the rioters or persuade them to leave.

For obstructing an official proceeding, the committee cited Trump’s relentless abuse of Vice President Mike Pence and others to prevent certification of the Jan. 6 election results. And his repeated lies about the election and efforts to undo the results opened him up to a charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States, the panel said.

The final charge recommended by the panel was conspiracy to make a false statement, citing a scheme by Trump and his allies to plant fake voter rolls in battleground states won by President Joe Biden.

Among other charges considered, but not approved, by the committee was seditious conspiracy, the same charge Justice Department prosecutors used to target a subset of rioters belonging to far-right groups such as Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Thompson said after the hearing that the seditious conspiracy charge was something the committee could not agree on.

The panel was formed in the summer of 2021 after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of what would have been a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the insurgency. When that effort failed, the Democratic-controlled House formed its own investigative committee.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California, a Trump ally, decided not to participate after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected some of his appointments. That left an opening for two anti-Trump Republicans in House Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois joined the seven Democrats, launching an unusually unified panel in a divided Congress.

McCarthy was one of four House Republicans who ignored congressional subpoenas from the panel and was referred to the House Ethics Committee on Monday for their noncompliance.

The Republican leader, who hopes to become speaker of the House when his party takes the majority in January, acknowledged that he spoke with Trump on Jan. 6. The committee also identified Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona, all of whom were in contact with Trump or the White House in the weeks before the attack.

While the mission of the committees was to take a comprehensive accounting of the insurrection and educate the public about what happened, they also aimed their work at an audience of one: the attorney general. Lawmakers on the panel have publicly pressed Garland to investigate Trump’s actions, and last month he appointed a special counsel, Smith, to oversee two Trump-related investigations, including those related to insurrection and the presence of classified documents in Trumps Florida estate.

Committee members said full accountability can only be found in the criminal justice system.

No one should get a pass, said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

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Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Jill Colvin and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

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For full coverage of the Jan. 6 hearings, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege.

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