By Ebi Kesiena
The U.S. House committee investigating the riots of Jan. 6, 2021, has officially recommended that the Department of Justice lay four criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, including conspiracy to defraud the government and inciting an insurrection.
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin announced that the committee had voted to refer the 75-year-old former president to the Department of Justice for allegedly obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government, inciting an insurrection and conspiracy to make a false statement noting that Trump “wanted to ride in like Mussolini on the shoulders of the mob,”
Raskin added that the committee would refer Trump attorney John Eastman for allegedly obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the government.
According to a preview of the committee’s final report, they will also refer four members of congress to the House Ethics Committee for refusing to comply with subpoenas: House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Jim Jordan, Rep. Scott Perry and Rep. Andy Biggs.
Eastman, a former professor at Chapman University, has described himself as Trump’s attorney who was assisting the then-president in his efforts to prove that the 2020 election was “stolen.”
But, according to filings made public by the committee earlier, Eastman was more than an adviser: “He spoke at the rally on the morning of January 6, spreading proven falsehoods to the tens of thousands of people attending that rally, and appears to have a broader role in many of the specific issues the Select Committee is investigating.”
In response to questions posed by the committee, Eastman has invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the filing says, and has attempted to “conceal a range of relevant documents behind claims of attorney-client privilege and work-product protection.”
As the criminal referrals themselves carry no official legal weight, they are largely symbolic and come just weeks before Republicans gain control of the House, effectively putting an end to the committee’s work altogether. It will now to be up to the Justice Department to determine whether or not to charge the former president or Eastman.
