Trump should face insurrection, obstruction charges: US Capitol riot panel

WASHINGTON - The US House of Representatives committee investigating

the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol

on Monday asked federal prosecutors to charge Mr Donald Trump with obstruction and insurrection for his role in sparking the deadly riot.

The Democratic-led select committee’s request to the Justice Department is non-binding, but comes as a special counsel is overseeing two other federal probes of the Republican former president related to his attempt to overturn his 2020 election defeat, and the removal of classified files from the White House.

The panel asked the Justice Department to charge Mr Trump with obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the United States, making false statements and aiding or inciting an insurrection.

“An insurrection is a rebellion against the authority of the United States. It is a grave federal offence, anchored in the Constitution itself,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat on the select committee, as he announced the charges.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the committee’s move. A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Monday’s meeting was the last public gathering of a nine-member panel that spent 18 months

probing the unprecedented attempt

to prevent the peaceful transfer of power by thousands of Trump backers, inspired by his false claims that his 2020 election loss to Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud.

The committee also said it referred four Republican House members, including Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, to the Chamber’s ethics committee, for failing to comply with its legal subpoenas as it investigated the attack.

“If we are to survive as a nation of laws and democracy, this can never happen again,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, the select committee’s chairman, as the meeting began.

Slamming Mr Trump for summoning the mob to the Capitol nearly two years ago, Mr Thompson also criticised the former president for undermining faith in the democratic system.

“If the faith is broken, so is our democracy. Donald Trump broke that faith,” said Mr Thompson.

Mr Trump has already launched a campaign to seek the Republican nomination to

run for the White House again in 2024.

Several investigations

The select committee’s work is one of a series of investigations into the riot. Five people, including a police officer, died during or shortly after the incident and more than 140 police officers were injured. The Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damage.

“Among the most shameful of this committee’s findings was that President Trump sat in the dining room off the Oval Office, watching the violent riot at the Capitol on television,” said Representative Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the committee and its vice-chairman.

A jury has already found members of the right-wing Oath Keepers militia

guilty of sedition

for their role in the attack.

Special counsel Jack Smith was appointed in November to lead federal probes into Mr Trump.

Mr Trump has faced a series of legal problems since leaving office. His real estate company was

convicted on Dec 6

of carrying out a 15-year-long criminal scheme to defraud the tax authorities.

Mr Trump has dismissed the many investigations as politically motivated. On Monday, he said any prosecution would mean he was improperly being charged twice, after he was impeached in 2021 for a second time but then acquitted in the Senate.

“The fake charges made by the highly partisan Unselect Committee of Jan 6 have already been submitted, prosecuted and tried in the form of impeachment hoax #2,” said Mr Trump on his Truth Social platform.

Hours into the riot, Mr Trump released a video statement asking rioters to go home, but also telling them that he loved them.

He then sent a tweet saying: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away.”

Former vice-president Mike Pence said on Monday that he hoped the Justice Department would not bring charges against Mr Trump, calling the former president’s conduct reckless but not criminal.

Mr Pence, who is weighing a 2024 Republican presidential bid that would pit him against his former boss, trod carefully when discussing the US Capitol attack, during which a mob of Trump supporters chanting “hang Mike Pence” came within 12m of him.

Speaking to Fox News on Monday morning, ahead of criminal referrals announced by the House committee investigating the attack, Mr Pence downplayed Mr Trump’s actions.

“I don’t know that it’s criminal to take bad advice from lawyers,” said Mr Pence, repeating an argument he made three weeks earlier at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit.

The select committee approved its report including the recommendation of charges unanimously, with all of its seven Democrats and two Republicans in favour.

The House Ways and Means Committee is due to meet on Tuesday to decide what to do with Mr Trump’s tax returns, which it obtained late in November after a long court fight.

Mr Trump was the first presidential candidate in decades to not release his tax returns during either of his campaigns for president.

REUTERS, NYTIMES