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      A very American coup attempt: Jan 6 panel lays bare Trump’s bid for power

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      A very American coup attempt: Jan 6 panel lays bare Trump’s bid for powerExecutive summary of report released by House panel investigating January 6 details a failed self-coup It was, all in all, a very American attempt at a coup. Or self-coup to be exact.The world watched its denouement dumbfounded on 6 January 2021 as thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the heart of US democracy, the Capitol in Washington, with cries to hang the vice-president, in an attempt to overturn an election and keep Trump in power.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreBut, as the detailed executive summary of the report released by the congressional committee investigating the insurrection lays bare, Trump’s bid to usurp power began while the votes from the November 2020 presidential election were still being counted.That kicked off what amounted to a rolling coup attempt as an increasingly desperate president sought to compromise and corrupt officials from the US justice department to state election boards in an effort to find a way, any way, to have his defeat declared null and void.The seeds were sown by Trump as he watched the results roll in on election night. The president’s own campaign manager, Bill Stepien, had told him that the way the count was conducted in several states meant that early results were likely to give Trump the lead but that would be eroded as absentee and other postal votes were tallied.The count panned out as Stepien predicted and Trump’s aides cautioned the president that, for all his euphoria at the prospect of pulling off another astonishing upset, it was way too soon to be declaring victory. But all Trump saw was his numbers go up and then down. He brushed off his advisers and went on television.“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election,” he declared.The following morning, Trump inevitably used Twitter to demand that the results already declared, and showing him ahead, be frozen: “STOP THE COUNT!”The report notes that almost none of Trump’s aides supported his claims, with the exception of the increasingly erratic former New York mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. But that fed the narrative pushed by the president and his supporters that he was the victim of an establishment conspiracy.By the time the electoral college met on 14 December to cast and certify each state’s votes, many of Trump’s senior staff, cabinet secretaries and even members of his family, were pressing him to admit defeat. The president preferred to listen to Giuliani’s conspiratorial claims that the voting machines were rigged and suitcases of fake ballots had been used to tip the result against him.As Trump grew more desperate, he pressured Republican officials in key swing states he had lost to overturn the results. In early January, he called Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to demand he “find 11,780 votes” to reverse Joe Biden’s crucial victory in the state.“Trump also made a thinly veiled threat to Raffensperger and his attorney about his failure to respond to Trump’s demands: ‘That’s a criminal, that’s a criminal offense … That’s a big risk to you and to Ryan, your lawyer … I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen,’” the report said.In Arizona, Trump targeted the Republican speaker of the state legislature, Russell “Rusty” Bowers. The president and Giuliani repeatedly called or met with Bowers to claim that Arizona’s results were fraudulent and to press him to replace the state’s members of the electoral college with ones who would vote for Trump.Bowers told Giuliani: “You are asking me do something against my oath, and I will not break my oath.”Trump exerted similar pressure on officials in Michigan, which he had won in 2016 but lost four years later.The president was pursuing a parallel track with the US justice department. The attorney general, William Barr, grew so exasperated with Trump’s actions that he resigned. The president called or met with Barr’s replacement, Jeff Rosen, nearly every day of the following weeks in an attempt to pressure the justice department “to find factual support for his stolen election claims and thereby to assist his efforts to reverse election results”, according to the report.When Rosen repeatedly told Trump that there was no evidence for the allegations, Trump replied: “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”When this didn’t fly either, Trump turned to those he could always trust: the men and women in the red Make America Great Again caps. As he saw it, the “deep state” was working to rob him of his rightful victory. Trump would count on the people to save him.And so the president summoned the faithful to Washington for a rally on January 6, the day his vice-president, Mike Pence, was to preside over a joint meeting of both houses of Congress to count and approve the electoral college votes, a routine affair for much of the US’s existence.Trump’s efforts to pressure states to withhold their tallies in the hope of delaying the endorsement of Biden’s victory had come to naught and a wave of court challenges to the results failed. Pence made clear to Trump that he would fulfil his duty and that the president’s days in the White House were numbered.Trump told the world a different story. On the evening of 5 January, he released a statement falsely claiming that his vice-president was “in total agreement” with him that Pence had the power to prevent endorsement of the results by “sending them back” to the states.In the early hours of the following morning, Trump tweeted: “If Vice President @Mike_Pence comes through for us, we will win the Presidency. Many States want to decertify the mistake they made in certifying incorrect & even fraudulent numbers in a process NOT approved by their State Legislatures (which it must be). Mike can send it back!”Pence did not agree and, astonishingly, refused to take his own president’s call on the morning of the rally. When Trump finally reached his vice-president by phone, the president called him “a wimp” for refusing to block Congress from approving Biden’s victory.The crowd that arrived for the Washington rally was already stoked by weeks of Trump’s tweets and conspiratorial claims bolstered by Fox News and other rightwing broadcasters. The committee’s report noted that far-right militia groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters were also instrumental in spreading the false claims of fraud.“President Trump’s supporters believed the election was stolen because they listened to his words, and they knew what he had called them to do; stop the certification of the electoral count,” the report said.It noted that supporters tweeted messages ahead of the rally predicting what would happen.“IF TRUMP TELLS US TO STORM THE FUKIN CAPITAL IMA DO THAT THEN!” said one.Others circulated flyers proclaiming “#OccupyCongress” over images of the Capitol.The report records that the intelligence services had wind of all of this, and warned the president and his staff. Some of Trump’s aides urged him to make a public statement disavowing violence.The president refused. His speech on January 6 instead made clear who he regarded as the real villain of the moment.As the congressional report recorded, Trump told the assembled crowd: “Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country.” The president added a veiled threat: “If you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I’m not hearing good stories.”The report records the reaction of Trump supporters at the rally.“I’m telling you, if Pence caved, we’re going to drag motherfuckers through the streets. You fucking politicians are going to get fucking drug through the streets,” said one.And then the mob headed Pence’s way.The report concluded that the Proud Boys militia led the attack on Congress.“Multiple Proud Boys reacted immediately to President Trump’s December 19th tweet and began their planning,” it said.Someone erected an imitation gallows in front of the Capitol. As the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence”, the vice-president fled his office near the Senate chamber but refused to leave the building. The protesters passed within 40ft.Pence was not the only target. The report records that one woman was looking for the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, “to shoot her in the frigging brain”.By the time the crowd broke through the barriers around the Capitol, beating police officers with flag poles and smashing their way into the corridors of Congress, Trump was back in the White House.Alarmed aides pleaded with him to make a call to stop the violence. Trump instead sent out yet another tweet denouncing Pence for failing to overturn the election result.Finally, he was pressured into acting.“As the evidence demonstrates, the rioters at the Capitol had invaded the building and halted the electoral count. They did not begin to relent until President Trump finally issued a video statement instructing his supporters to leave the Capitol at 4:17 p.m., which had an immediate and helpful effect: rioters began to disperse,” the report said.The self-coup had failed. Biden’s election win would be certified.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesDonald TrumpUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel to hold final public hearing and vote on referrals against Trump – live

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      It’s decision day on criminal referrals for Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.At 1pm, the bipartisan House panel that has been investigating his insurrection for 18 months will meet for the final time, and has plenty of business to conclude.It’s expected to vote to refer the former president to the justice department for obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, and conspiracy to defraud the United States, among other potential charges.We’ll also hear the panel’s summary of the wide-ranging plot to keep Trump in office, including inciting the deadly 6 January attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters; and scheming to reverse the election result using fake electors.California Democrat Adam Schiff, a key member of the panel, said Sunday on CNN he was confident there was “sufficient evidence” to charge Trump, and several of his closest aides and advisors.They include former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Trump attorney John Eastman. Also expected are civil referrals to the House ethics committee for Republican members of Congress who defied subpoenas, and a recommendation of disbarments for Trump lawyers.As my colleague Hugo Lowell writes for the Guardian today:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The anticipated criminal referrals against Trump mark a remarkable moment for a precedent-shattering investigation into the former president’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat at any cost and impede the congressional certification that culminated in the Capitol attack early last year.Please stick with us for what is certain to be a busy day. We’ll bring you developments as they happen.While we wait for events to unfold, take a read of our preview of today’s meeting here:January 6 committee to use last meeting to refer Trump to justice departmentRead moreAs the clock ticks down to this afternoon’s final “business meeting” of the January 6 House committee, let’s take a look at some of the winners and losers. Martin Pengelly reports:From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreAnother Kennedy is headed for Ireland. The state department said Monday that Joe Kennedy, of the storied Irish-American political family, would become US special envoy to Northern Ireland for economic affairs.Kennedy, 42, will focus on advancing economic development in Northern Ireland and people to people ties between the citizens of the two countries, secretary of state Antony Blinken said in a statement, according to Reuters.“His role builds on the longstanding US commitment to supporting peace, prosperity, and stability in Northern Ireland and the peace dividends of the Belfast Good Friday agreement,” Blinken said.I welcome Joe Kennedy III as the U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs. He will be instrumental to ensuring deeper U.S. support for economic growth in Northern Ireland to benefit everyone.— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) December 19, 2022
      Kennedy is grandson of former attorney general Robert F Kennedy, and great-nephew to former president John F Kennedy, both assassinated in the 1960s. He served eight years in the House before losing a Senate bid in Massachusetts in 2020.His cousin Caroline Kennedy, a former ambassador to Japan and daughter of the late president, is ambassador to Australia.Jury selection begins today in the seditious conspiracy trial of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four other members of the extremist group accused of plotting the deadly January 6 Capitol attack.Tarrio and four of his lieutenants are heading to trial in Washington DC, the Associated Press reports, just weeks after two leaders of another extremist group, the Oath Keepers, were convicted of seditious conspiracy in a major victory for the justice department’s extensive 6 January prosecution.Tarrio is perhaps the highest-profile defendant to face jurors yet in the attack that delayed the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory, left dozens of police injured and led to nearly 1,000 arrests. Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Dominic Pezzola and Joseph Biggs are charged with several other crimes in addition to seditious conspiracy. If convicted of sedition, they could face up to 20 years in prison. Jury selection is likely to take several days, and the trial is expected to last at least six weeks.More on this story:Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes found guilty of seditious conspiracyRead moreHere’s a handy explainer from my colleague Kira Lerner about the work of the bipartisan January 6 House committee that’s been investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.From the panel’s first meeting in July 2021, through live, televised hearings this year, to its final gathering today, the nine members have focused stringently on the insurrection effort. They have interviewed more than 1,000 witness interviews, reviewed more than one million documents and viewed hundreds of hours of video. The Select Committee will hold a business meeting today at 1pm ET.WATCH LIVE ⤵️https://t.co/qI55tpMLn2— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) December 19, 2022
      They obtained a massive number of call records, text messages, and emails through subpoenas and also got access to White House records from the National Archives.The committee assembled five teams to investigate different topic areas and assigned each team a color, the Guardian has previously reported. The issues ranged from efforts by Trump and his associates to pressure federal, state, and local officials to overturn the election to law enforcement and intelligence agency failures. They also examined domestic extremist groups like QAnon, and online misinformation, those who planned the January 6 rally, the “Stop the Steal” movement and the money behind efforts to overturn the election.Read the full story:What has the January 6 House panel done so far – and what’s next?Read moreIt’s decision day on criminal referrals for Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.At 1pm, the bipartisan House panel that has been investigating his insurrection for 18 months will meet for the final time, and has plenty of business to conclude.It’s expected to vote to refer the former president to the justice department for obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, and conspiracy to defraud the United States, among other potential charges.We’ll also hear the panel’s summary of the wide-ranging plot to keep Trump in office, including inciting the deadly 6 January attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters; and scheming to reverse the election result using fake electors.California Democrat Adam Schiff, a key member of the panel, said Sunday on CNN he was confident there was “sufficient evidence” to charge Trump, and several of his closest aides and advisors.They include former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and Trump attorney John Eastman. Also expected are civil referrals to the House ethics committee for Republican members of Congress who defied subpoenas, and a recommendation of disbarments for Trump lawyers.As my colleague Hugo Lowell writes for the Guardian today:.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The anticipated criminal referrals against Trump mark a remarkable moment for a precedent-shattering investigation into the former president’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election defeat at any cost and impede the congressional certification that culminated in the Capitol attack early last year.Please stick with us for what is certain to be a busy day. We’ll bring you developments as they happen.While we wait for events to unfold, take a read of our preview of today’s meeting here:January 6 committee to use last meeting to refer Trump to justice departmentRead moreGood morning blog readers, for what promises to be a momentous day in US politics.It’s a long-awaited moment of reckoning for Donald Trump as the January 6 House panel investigating his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat meets in public for the final time, and votes to recommend referral to the justice department for criminal charges against the former president.As we reported last week, Trump faces referral for obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the United States, among other potential charges.But the bipartisan panel has plenty of other business to conclude when it meets at 1pm, including outlining investigative findings and legislative recommendations, voting to formally adopt its final report, then voting on referrals for Trump and several key allies and advisers.While we’re unlikely to see the full report today, we expect an executive summary, outlining the extraordinary efforts Trump took to stay in power, including unleashing a mob of supporters on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Today we’re also watching:
      Chief of the Capitol police Thomas Manger testifies on the security of Congress members at an afternoon meeting of the Senate’s rules and administration committee.
      Joe Biden meets with Ecuador’s president Guillermo Lasso at lunchtime.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 2.30pm. More

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      Schiff: ‘Sufficient evidence’ to criminally charge Trump over efforts to overturn election

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      Schiff: ‘Sufficient evidence’ to criminally charge Trump over efforts to overturn electionDramatic statement comes one day before January 6 panel set to release outline of its investigative report on US Capitol attack California congressman Adam Schiff said Sunday that he believes there is “sufficient evidence” to criminally charge Donald Trump in relation to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Schiff’s dramatic statement on CNN’s State of the Union came one day before the House January 6 select committee to which he belongs is poised to release an outline of its extensive investigative report on the US Capitol attack, which has been linked to nine deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers.January 6 committee to use last meeting to refer Trump to justice departmentRead moreThe committee is expected to use its last meeting on Monday to refer Trump, as well as others, to the US justice department in relation to the former president’s attempts to reverse his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.During this final meeting, the panel is expected to outline an executive summary of its findings, propose legislative recommendations, vote to adopt the report – and then vote on possible criminal and civil referrals. Schiff is one of nine members, seven of whom are Democrats like him, serving on the January 6 committee.The potential referrals involving Trump are expected to involve obstruction of an official congressional proceeding as well as conspiracy to defraud the United States. The Guardian first reported the nature of these referrals.Schiff told CNN host Jake Tapper that he “can’t comment” on specifics of any possible referrals. The predicted criminal referrals are effectively symbolic because Congress can’t force prosecutors to pursue charges.“I think that the evidence is there that Trump committed criminal offenses in connection with his efforts to overturn the election,” said Schiff, who chairs the House intelligence committee. “And viewing it as a former prosecutor, I think there’s sufficient evidence to charge the [former] president.”Tapper asked Schiff whether this was enough to secure a conviction.“Well, I don’t know what the justice department has. I do know what’s in the public record. The evidence seems pretty plain to me, but I would want to see the full body of evidence, if I were in the prosecutor’s shoes, to make a decision,” Schiff responded. “But this is someone, who in multiple ways, tried to pressure state officials to find votes that didn’t exist. This is someone who tried to interfere with a joint session, even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol.“If that’s not criminal, then – then I don’t know what it is.”Asked whether he thought Trump would face criminal charges, Schiff said: “The short answer is, I don’t know. I think that he should. I think he should face the same remedy, force of law that anyone else would.”Schiff said he was worried, however, that “it may take until he is no longer politically relevant for justice to be served. That’s not the way it should be in this country, but there seems to be an added evidentiary burden with someone who has a large enough following.”“That simply should not be the case, but I find it hard, otherwise, to explain why, almost two years from the events of January 6, and with the evidence that’s already in the public domain, why the justice department hasn’t moved more quickly than it has,” Schiff also said.The Guardian previously reported that the Trump allies who might face criminal referrals include former high-ranking White House staffers. The panel is also expected to make civil referrals to the House ethics committee involving Republican Congress members – as well as suggest disbarment for some of Trump’s attorneys.Exclusive: January 6 panel considering Trump referral to justice department for obstruction of CongressRead moreThe January 6 committee has largely concluded that the insurrection was rooted in a conspiracy, sources previously told the Guardian. The panel found that Trump oversaw a “political” plan for his Vice-President Mike Pence to refuse to certify election results in a joint session on January 6 as well as a “coup” plot to force Congress’s hand if he refused.Committee investigators think that Trump’s alleged desire to illegally thwart the certification of the election he lost was obvious months before January 6. They believe it extended from the time he agreed with a fake elector plot so states would swap Biden’s electoral college votes for him until he refused for hours to call off Capitol attackers, sources had told the Guardian.Trump did not leave documentary evidence of his alleged involvement, but his staffers left a paper trail. During Trump’s presidency, he used his power to stifle inquiries, the committee is expected to say. One of Trump’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS elections 2020Donald TrumpUS politicsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Exclusive: January 6 panel considering Trump referral to justice department for obstruction of Congress

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      Exclusive: January 6 panel considering Trump referral to justice department for obstruction of CongressSubcommittee recommended Trump could also be referred for conspiracy to defraud the United States, sources say The House January 6 select committee is considering a criminal referral to the justice department against Donald Trump for obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the United States on the recommendation of a special subcommittee, according to sources familiar with the matter.The recommendations on the former president – made by the subcommittee examining referrals – were based on renewed examinations of the evidence that indicated Trump’s attempts to impede the certification of the 2020 election results amounted to potential crimes.The select committee could pursue additional criminal referrals for Trump and others, given the subcommittee raised the obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud statutes among a range of options, including insurrection, and discussions about referrals continued on Thursday, said the sources.The referrals could also largely be symbolic since Congress has no ability to compel prosecutions by the justice department, which has increasingly ramped up its own investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and subpoenaed top aides to appear before federal grand juries.The recommendations presage a moment of high political drama next Monday, when the full panel will vote publicly to adopt its final report and formally decide on making referrals, and increase pressure on the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to seek charges over January 6.Trump could be referred for obstruction of an official proceeding, the subcommittee is said to have concluded, because he attempted to impede the certification and did so with a “consciousness of wrongdoing” – as the panel has previously interpreted the intent threshold.The former president was seen to have met the elements of the offense since he relentlessly pressured Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral college votes for Joe Biden, despite knowing he had lost the election and had been told the plan was illegal.Trump could also be referred for conspiracy to defraud the United States, the subcommittee suggested, arguing the former president violated the statute that prohibits entering into an agreement to obstruct a lawful function of government by dishonest means.The conspiracy charge was seen to be broadly applicable because Trump’s agreement with key lawyers – and potentially even the rioters – did not need to be overt, while the plan to have Pence reject Biden slates of electors with Trump slates that did not exist was deceitful.The discussions about referring Trump for obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud appeared to build upon the major win for the panel in May, when a federal judge found that Trump and the lawyer John Eastman likely engaged in felonies in trying to subvert the 2020 election.In the ruling, US district court judge David Carter in California ruled that Trump and Eastman had concocted a “coup in search of a legal theory” and ordered Eastman to turn over his most sensitive emails to the investigation, citing the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege.The emails later showed that Eastman had admitted that he knew that having Pence interrupt the January 6 certification was illegal – and yet urged Pence’s counsel Greg Jacob that the then-vice president should move ahead with the plot anyway.The panel may not adopt all of the options presented by the subcommittee – it also suggested civil referrals to the House ethics committee for GOP congressmen and the disbarment of some Trump lawyers, among a number of options, though a witness tampering referral for Trump is no longer under consideration.But members on the select committee have resolved to suggest criminal and civil charges to some degree, and any referral letters would be accompanied by supporting evidence not dissimilar to prosecution memorandums that are routinely drawn up by the justice department, one of the sources said.A spokesman for the select committee declined to comment.Regardless of how the panel proceeds against Trump, the intention to make criminal referrals against the former president has been practically an open secret for months as its members have used the issue of potential criminality to reinforce the seriousness of Trump’s conduct.The recommendations from the subcommittee – led by congressman Jamie Raskin and comprised of vice-chair Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren, all members with a legal background – follow internal discussions for nearly a year that Trump committed crimes in seeking to nullify his defeat.Even before the select committee filed its civil suit to Carter, Cheney read aloud parts of the the obstruction statute at a public business meeting last December. And then throughout public hearings in the summer, the panel detailed their findings like prosecutors, treating the public like a jury at trial.If the members decide to move forward with criminal referrals against Trump in particular – essentially a letter informing the justice department they uncovered evidence of crimes – they would be creating a roadmap for a prosecution put together by the select committee’s top lawyers.The select committee’s investigation has been principally driven by color-coded teams of investigative lawyers, many of whom have previously worked as federal prosecutors, conducting more than 1,000 witness interviews and reviewing documents and communications from Trump’s confidantes.Still, the justice department has no obligation to take up any criminal referrals and, at this stage, could have a better perspective about the strength of criminal charges as it escalates its own January 6 inquiries with an investigative arsenal far more potent than possessed by Congress.In recent months, an increasing number of top Trump advisors and election officials in states where Trump tried to nullify his defeat have been subpoenaed to testify before an increasing number of federal grand juries in Washington hearing evidence about events connected to the Capitol attack.The recent subpoenas to election officials have demanded any and all communications involving Trump and the Trump campaign from June 2020 to January 2021, as part of the investigations into Trump’s so-called fake electors scheme, according to two subpoenas reviewed by the Guardian.TopicsDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      House January 6 panel to issue criminal referrals to DoJ as tensions heighten

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      House January 6 panel to issue criminal referrals to DoJ as tensions heightenTargets and details of referrals in investigation of Capitol attack were not immediately clear but could follow two tracks The House January 6 select committee will make criminal referrals to the US justice department in connection with its investigation into the Capitol attack, the chairman of the panel said Tuesday, heightening tensions ahead of the release of its final report expected to come later this month.The targets and details about the referrals were not immediately clear, and the panel’s chairman Bennie Thompson affirmed to reporters only that the panel would issue citations.January 6 report expected to focus on Trump’s role and potential culpabilityRead moreBut the decision to move forward with referrals comes days after a special four-member subcommittee established to consider the issue recommended that the full committee seek prosecution from the justice department for a number of individuals connected to January 6, two sources said.The referrals could follow two tracks: citations for things that Congress can request prosecution by statute, such as perjury or witness tampering, or wider-ranging recommendations such as making the case that Donald Trump obstructed an official proceeding on 6 January.At issue is the value of making referrals when the justice department could now be in a better position to asses potential crimes.The department in recent months has intensified its own parallel, criminal investigations into the Capitol attack and Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, subpoenaing dozens of Trump advisors and January 6 rally organizers to testify before at least two federal grand juries in Washington.The select committee might have once argued that it made sense to issue referrals for instance for lying to Congress because it alone could determine whether witnesses had made false statements to investigators.But with the panel committed to releasing all of its evidence and transcripts alongside the final report, the department might now be best placed to identify false or contradictory statements to Congress, given how federal prosecutors have now interviewed many of the same witnesses.The justice department has also previously issued charges even when Congress did not make overt referrals; Trump confidante Roger Stone was indicted and convicted in 2019 for lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing a House investigation when he appeared before the House intelligence committee.The four-member subcommittee led by Congressman Jamie Raskin and the other members with legal backgrounds – the vice-chair Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren – made its recommendations about referrals and subpoena noncompliance by Republican members of Congress privately on Friday.The move is likely to lead to intense speculation as the committee puts the finishing touches on its report into the insurrection at the Capitol and those who took part in it and the build up to the attack.The committee held a series of often dramatic public hearings over the summer where it presented some of its evidence and testimony from the many witnesses it called. The picture the committee painted was one of a plot to foil the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win that was orchestrated by Donald Trump and some of his key allies in his White House. “The committee has determined that referrals to outside entities should be considered as a final part of its work. The committee will make decisions about specifics in the days ahead,” a spokesman for the panel said in a statement.The work of the committee has been the target of often baseless attacks by Trump and many others in the Republican party, who have sought to portray it as a partisan effort, despite the prominence of two rebel Republicans on the panel. But the narrow victory in the House by Republicans in last month’s midterm elections means it will now certainly be wound up as the party takes control of the lower chamber of Congress.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden condemns antisemitism following Kanye West’s remarks: ‘Silence is complicity’ – as it happened

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      Kanye West’s suspension from Twitter after the rapper posted an image blending a swastika with a star of David, following an interview in which he praised Adolf Hitler and denied the Holocaust, appears to have caught the eye of Joe Biden.The president tweeted his own response on Friday morning, not directly addressing West, who now goes by the name of Ye, but saying he wanted “to make a few things clear”.I just want to make a few things clear:The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity.— President Biden (@POTUS) December 2, 2022
      “The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides. Silence is complicity,” he wrote.His tweet alludes to Republican leaders who either chose to not to speak our, or offered only tepid criticism of Donald Trump hosting West and fellow Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes at a dinner at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.Read more:Kanye West suspended from Twitter after posting swastika inside Star of DavidRead moreThanks for joining us today, and through the week, for the US politics blog. We’re closing it now for the day.
      Joe Biden had a busy Friday. He’s currently in Boston, where he’s talking with Prince William about the climate emergency.
      The president has been speaking out about antisemitic hate speech in a forthright tweet condemning political leaders whose silence, he says, equals “complicity”. It comes after Twitter suspended the account of rapper Kanye West for inciting violence with offensive, anti-Jewish posts.
      Closing arguments in the criminal tax fraud trial of the Trump Organization have wrapped up in New York. Former president Donald Trump is not on trial, but prosecutors say he was fully aware of an illegal scheme perpetrated by top executives of his real estate company. Jurors will deliberate next week.
      Pat Cipollone, Trump’s former White House counsel, was spotted entering the grand jury area of the US district court in Washington DC on Friday, CNN reported, in the justice department’s January 6 case.
      Democrats voted to remove Iowa as the leadoff state on the presidential nominating calendar and replace it with South Carolina starting in 2024. The move was championed by Joe Biden to better reflect the party’s deeply diverse electorate.
      Biden said the US had dodged an “economic catastrophe” after Congress approved legislation averting a nationwide rail shutdown on 9 December. The president signed a law imposing a labor settlement on rail workers that did not include paid time off that unions had demanded.
      A 15-year-old canvassing for Georgia senator Raphael Warnock was shot through the door of a house he knocked at on Thursday, according to police in Savannah. The youth was hit in the leg, and is expected to survive. A 42-year-old man was arrested.
      Please join us again next week for a consequential week in the US Senate. The runoff election between Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker is on Tuesday, and victory for the incumbent would give Democrats a 51-49 advantage in the chamber.Democrats voted Friday to remove Iowa as the leadoff state on the presidential nominating calendar and replace it with South Carolina starting in 2024, the Associated Press reports.It is a dramatic shakeup championed by Joe Biden to better reflect the party’s deeply diverse electorate.BREAKING: Democrats voted to remove Iowa as the leadoff state on the presidential nominating calendar and replace it with South Carolina starting in 2024, a dramatic shakeup championed by President Biden to better reflect the party’s diverse electorate. https://t.co/3gKEcLOpPQ— The Associated Press (@AP) December 2, 2022
      The Democratic National Committee’s rule-making arm made the move to strip Iowa from the position it has held for more than four decades after technical meltdowns sparked chaos and marred results of the state’s 2020 caucus. The change also comes after a long push by some of the party’s top leaders to start choosing a president in states that are less white, especially given the importance of Black voters as Democrats’ most loyal electoral base.Read more:Biden tells Democrats to revise primary calendar to boost Black voters’ voicesRead moreDemocrats are poised to shake up the way in which they nominate presidential candidates, after Joe Biden said the primary process should better represent the party’s non-white voters, Adam Gabbatt writes.Biden has reportedly told Democrats that Iowa, the state that has led off the Democratic voting calendar since 1976, should be moved down the calendar, with South Carolina instead going first.The move would see New Hampshire, which has technically held the nation’s first primary since 1920 (Iowa uses a slightly different system of caucuses, or in-person voting), shunted down the calendar.Both Iowa and New Hampshire are predominantly white states. Clamor has been growing inside and outside the Democratic party for a different state, with a population more representative of the US as a whole, to be given the first go.Associated Press reported that Biden had written to the Democratic National Committee regarding the proposal. The DNC’s rules committee is meeting on Friday to vote on the primary calendar.“For decades, Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process,” Biden wrote.“We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”Read the full story:Biden tells Democrats to revise primary calendar to boost Black voters’ voiceRead moreJoe Biden has welcomed the Prince of Wales to Boston, where they will have a discussion about the climate emergency at the John F Kennedy presidential library and museum.The president and Prince William exchanged a warm handshake and posed briefly for photographs before heading inside.The Prince and Princess of Wales, who earlier visited the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University, are on the third and final day of what has been a turbulent visit to the US.Before meeting with Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard, the Princess of Wales greeted crowds in Harvard Square pic.twitter.com/NVWgjj2UV1— Harvard University (@Harvard) December 2, 2022
      They are seeking to end the trip on a high note at an award ceremony later for award ceremony for Prince William’s environmental Earthshot prize.Read more:William and Kate seek to end US trip on positive note after turbulent weekRead morePolice in Savannah, Georgia, have charged a 42-year-old man they say shot a teenage canvasser for incumbent Democratic senator Raphael Warnock.Authorities say the youth was on the campaign trail when he was wounded, and was shot through the front door of a house he had knocked at.Today is the final day of early voting ahead of next Tuesday’s Senate runoff, in which Warnock holds a narrow polling advantage over Republican challenger Herschel Walker. More than 1.5m votes have already been cast.The incident took place on Thursday. The 15-year-old was shot in the leg and sustained non life-threating injuries.#NewsRelease SPD Arrests Suspect in Hartridge Street Shooting https://t.co/8GsECFjjeH— Savannah Police Department (@SavPolice) December 2, 2022
      A press release from the Savannah police department says “at this point, there is no indication the shooting was politically motivated”.But it adds: “According to the preliminary investigation, the teen was campaigning for Raphael Warnock for the upcoming run-off election when the incident occurred. While at the front door of one of the residences on Hartridge Street, the suspect fired a shot through the closed door, striking the teen.“Officers quickly identified and located the suspect, Jimmy Paiz, at the residence. Paiz was booked into the Chatham County jail on charges of aggravated assault and aggravated battery.”In her Air Force One mini-briefing, Karine Jean-Pierre was pressed on how Joe Biden intended to secure paid leave for all workers. During his signing earlier today of legislation averting a nationwide rail shutdown, which did not include such a provision for rail workers, the president said he would be “coming back at it”.It seems there’s no specific plan. The White House press secretary said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}He’ll continue forcefully advocating for Congress and employers to extend paid sick leave to all workers. That’s what’s important. As you can tell from his remarks this afternoon, the president’s focus remains, again, on getting Congress to act.Biden won’t, however, be returning to Congress to fix the “glitches” in the Inflation Reduction Act he conceded yesterday, during a visit by President Emmanuel Macron of France, had upset European countries.The president said Thursday they were fixable. When asked on Friday how, Jean-Pierre responded:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We don’t have any plans to go back to Congress for legislative changes. There is a complex implementation and process which is actively underway at federal agencies, but… we’re not going to be addressing any glitches.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has been expanding on Joe Biden’s earlier tweet calling out antisemitic hate speech.It follows Twitter’s decision to suspend the rapper Kanye West for making offensive posts, including an image of a swastika blended with a Star of David.“It doesn’t matter who [says it],” Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One as the president headed to Boston to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales. “What the President is trying to say is being silent is complicit. And when we see this type of hatred when we see the some type of antisemitism, we need to call it out.”Jean-Pierre was asked several times who Biden was addressing, and whether it was a direct response to West’s message.She added: “The president is standing with the Jewish community. The common theme of all forms of bigotry is that hate doesn’t go away, it only hides the grotesque poison of antisemitism.“Just yesterday he and President Macron [of France] recognized the hundreds of thousands of Americans who gave their lives to overcome the horror of Nazism and keep us free. And so he believes as president is important to speak up.”Prosecutors resumed closing arguments Friday in the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud trial, promising to share previously unrevealed details about Donald Trump’s knowledge of a tax dodge scheme hatched by one of his top executives, the Associated Press reports.“Donald Trump knew exactly what was going on with his top executives,” assistant Manhattan district attorney Joshua Steinglass told jurors on Thursday during the first half of his closing argument, adding: “We will come back to that later.”Trump himself is not on trial, but the company that bears his name, through which he manages real estate holdings and other ventures, faces fines of more than $1m if convicted of helping executives avoid paying income taxes on company-paid perks such as Manhattan apartments and luxury cars.The tax fraud case is the only trial to arise from the three-year investigation of Trump and his business practices by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The company has denied wrongdoing.Steinglass told jurors that two executives involved in the scheme, longtime finance chief Allen Weisselberg and controller Jeffrey McConney, were “high managerial” agents entrusted to act on behalf of the company and its various entities.The defense has alleged that Weisselberg came up with the tax dodge scheme on his own without Trump, or the Trump family knowing, and that the company didn’t benefit from his actions. Weisselberg testified that Trump didn’t know, but that the Trump Organization did derive some benefit because it didn’t have to pay him as much in actual salary.“Their entire theory of the case is a fraud,” Steinglass said, insisting the former president had full knowledge of everything that occurred.Jurors are expected to deliberate next week.The Colorado secretary of state has ordered a recount in the congressional race where extremist Republican Lauren Boebert led Democrat Adam Frisch by just 550 votes in an unexpectedly tight race.The Associated Press has declared the race too close to call and will await the results of the recount. The recount, which was expected, was formally announced Wednesday.One week after the polls closed, Boebert claimed victory and Frisch conceded. Frisch, a former city councilman from Aspen, acknowledges a recount is unlikely to change the results, the AP says.In a virtual press conference announcing his concession, Frisch argued that the thin margin is its own small victory after his campaign was largely considered futile by the political establishment. He added that he hasn’t ruled out another bid for the seat in 2024.It’s been a lively morning in US politics news and there’s more to come. We’ll shortly have a post on closing arguments in the Trump Organization trial in New York.Joe Biden’s on his to Boston to meet Britain’s Prince William and his wife, Kate, the princess of Wales, and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will gaggle aboard Air Force One around the half hour (if the White House is on stated schedule, which is rarely.)Here’s where things stand:
      Joe Biden used Twitter to condemn antisemitism and political leaders who fail to call it out, following Ye’s suspension from Twitter after the rapper formerly named Kanye West posted an image blending a swastika with a star of David, following an interview in which he praised Adolf Hitler and denied the Holocaust.
      Pat Cipollone, former White House counsel for Donald Trump, was spotted entering the grand jury area of the US district court in Washington DC on Friday, CNN is reported, in the DoJ’s January 6 case.
      Biden said the US has dodged an “economic catastrophe” after Congress approved legislation averting a nationwide rail shutdown on 9 December. The president was speaking at the White House before signing legislation that was approved in the Senate on Thursday and which imposes a labor settlement on rail workers who were poised to strike in a dispute over pay and conditions. More

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      January 6 panel mulls criminal referrals as Trump sees setback in Mar-a-Lago case – live

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      The January 6 House panel investigating the Capitol attack, and Donald Trump’s insurrection, is set to meet in private on Friday as it prepares to mull criminal charges against the former president.The “walls closing in on Trump” headline has been written often, but this time with an elevated degree of peril for a man who recently announced his third run at the White House as a Republican.A subcommittee formed in October to make recommendations will present its report to the full panel today, according to NPR, and a determination on recommending any particular action will follow in short order.“We’ll just accept the report, and probably one day next week, make a decision one way or another,” Mississippi Democratic Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chair, told the network.The committee is expected to release its final report around the middle of this month, and it is expected to focus heavily on Trump’s involvement in the Capitol attack and his potential culpability.The Guardian reported last week that it has provoked something of a rift between panel members, with some believing it concentrates too much on Trump himself, and not enough of alleged intelligence failures by the FBI that resulted in the Capitol being overrun by supporters he incited.New: Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson tells me the full committee will receive the subcommittee’s recommendations tomorrow at 8:30a but likely wont make a decision on referrals and what to do about subpoenaed GOP members until next week.— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) December 1, 2022
      Members of the subcommittee, which is chaired by Democrat Jamie Raskin, and includes Republican Liz Cheney alongside other Democrats Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren, all have a legal background, or, in Schiff’s case, prosecutorial experience.As well as making recommendations on criminal charges, the subcommittee was also tasked with resolving how to respond to Trump’s lawsuit against his subpoena.Read more:January 6 report expected to focus on Trump’s role and potential culpabilityRead moreLate on Thursday, a federal appeals court delivered a major blow to Donald Trump by knocking down the appointment of a special master to look at documents seized by the FBI from the former president’s Florida resort.The court also sternly rebuked Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge who assigned the special master, for meddling in a justice department investigation. Here’s my colleague Hugo Lowell’s report:A federal appeals court on Thursday terminated the special master review of documents seized from Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago property, paving the way for the justice department to regain access to the entirety of the materials for use in the criminal investigation surrounding the former president.The decision by the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit marked a decisive defeat for Trump in a ruling that said a lower-court judge should never have granted his request for an independent arbiter in the first place and is unlikely to be overturned in the event of appeal.“The law is clear,” the appeals court wrote in an unanimous 23-page opinion. “We cannot write a rule that allows any subject of a search warrant to block government investigations after the execution of the warrant. Nor can we write a rule that allows only former presidents to do so.”The ruling removed the lower-court judge’s order, allowing federal prosecutors to use the unclassified documents – in addition to the documents marked classified they previously regained in an earlier appeal – in the criminal investigation examining Trump’s mishandling of national security materials.Trump can only appeal to the US supreme court, according to local rules in the 11th circuit, though it was not immediately clear whether he would do so. The former president has lost multiple cases before the supreme court, most recently including whether Congress can get access to his tax returns.In a statement, a Trump spokesman said: “The decision does not address the merits that clearly demonstrate the impropriety of the unprecedented, illegal and unwarranted raid on Mar-a-Lago. President Donald J Trump will continue to fight against the weaponized Department of ‘Justice.’”Read the full story:US court strikes down appointment of special master to review Trump recordsRead moreWhile we’re looking at the machinations of the January 6 House committee, we’re certainly not the only ones. Republicans, already committed to shutting down the panel when they assume control of the House next month (assuming it hasn’t done so itself by then) appear dead set on investigating the investigators.MSNBC’s MaddowBlog, from the Rachel Maddow show, takes a closer look at would-be Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s role in the plan, in an article published Friday.The House minority leader, if he wins enough party support to get the gavel of course, appears eager not to find answers about the 6 January Capitol attacks, or Donald Trump’s desperate efforts to retain the presidency despite his defeat by Joe Biden.Instead, he wants to cast shade on the integrity of the bipartisan panel. In a letter last week, reported by the New York Times, he wrote to the committee chair Bennie Thompson, ordering him to preserve all documents, including transcripts of more than 1,000 interviews. It’s being seen purely as a political display, as it’s something the panel would have to do anyway.This from a man who resolutely refused to cooperate with the panel last year when he received a subpoena.According to MSNBC, the tactics of McCarthy and the Republicans are “intended to discredit probes they consider politically inconvenient”. You can read the MSNBC report here.The January 6 House panel investigating the Capitol attack, and Donald Trump’s insurrection, is set to meet in private on Friday as it prepares to mull criminal charges against the former president.The “walls closing in on Trump” headline has been written often, but this time with an elevated degree of peril for a man who recently announced his third run at the White House as a Republican.A subcommittee formed in October to make recommendations will present its report to the full panel today, according to NPR, and a determination on recommending any particular action will follow in short order.“We’ll just accept the report, and probably one day next week, make a decision one way or another,” Mississippi Democratic Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chair, told the network.The committee is expected to release its final report around the middle of this month, and it is expected to focus heavily on Trump’s involvement in the Capitol attack and his potential culpability.The Guardian reported last week that it has provoked something of a rift between panel members, with some believing it concentrates too much on Trump himself, and not enough of alleged intelligence failures by the FBI that resulted in the Capitol being overrun by supporters he incited.New: Jan. 6 committee chair Bennie Thompson tells me the full committee will receive the subcommittee’s recommendations tomorrow at 8:30a but likely wont make a decision on referrals and what to do about subpoenaed GOP members until next week.— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) December 1, 2022
      Members of the subcommittee, which is chaired by Democrat Jamie Raskin, and includes Republican Liz Cheney alongside other Democrats Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren, all have a legal background, or, in Schiff’s case, prosecutorial experience.As well as making recommendations on criminal charges, the subcommittee was also tasked with resolving how to respond to Trump’s lawsuit against his subpoena.Read more:January 6 report expected to focus on Trump’s role and potential culpabilityRead moreThe White House has announced that Joe Biden will deliver live remarks at 10.15am as he signs legislation averting a national rail strike.The Senate voted 80-15 on Thursday to progress an imposed settlement on rail workers, one day after the House did the same.Biden, who became known as Amtrak Joe for his days riding the railroad to and from the Capitol when he was a senator, is likely to praise the speed at which Congress moved to avoid the planned 9 December shutdown. Biden’s pushing of the settlement, however, is not without controversy. Read more here:Biden just knifed labor unions in the back. They shouldn’t forget it | Hamilton NolanRead moreGood morning politics blog readers, and happy Friday. It’s a big day for the January 6 House committee investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection as it meets to mull potential criminal referrals for the former president, and those in his inner circle.The bipartisan panel’s closed-doors meeting follows a massive setback late on Thursday for Trump’s tactics of obstructing a parallel justice department inquiry into his improper handling of classified documents at his Florida resort. A federal appeals court struck down the assignment of an independent special master reviewing the documents, and delivered a direct rebuke for the Trump-appointed judge who engaged him.We’ll have plenty more about those developments coming up.Here’s what else we’re watching Friday on what promises to be a busy day:
      Joe Biden has picked up an unexpected fan in the form of Republican firebrand Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker who says the president is getting things right and enjoyed one of the best first-term midterm elections in history.
      Biden will meet the Prince and Princess of Wales later today at the John F Kennedy presidential library in Boston.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at lunchtime aboard Air Force One en route to Boston.
      It’s the last day of early voting ahead of next Tuesday’s crucial Senate run-off in Gerogia. Latest polls give Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock a 3-4% lead over Republican challenger Herschel Walker. More

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      January 6 report expected to focus on Trump’s role and potential culpability

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      January 6 report expected to focus on Trump’s role and potential culpabilityFinal report by House select committee is scheduled for release in December – but fixation on Trump has opened a rift on the panel The House January 6 select committee’s final report into its investigation is expected to focus heavily on Donald Trump’s involvement in the Capitol attack and his potential culpability, opening a rift on the panel weeks before its scheduled release in the middle of December.Justice department asks Pence to testify in Trump investigationRead moreThe nature of the final report – alongside criminal referrals to the justice department – is expected to be the defining legacy of the investigation that brought into sharp relief Trump’s efforts to stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win and return to the White House for a second term.As the final report is currently drafted, an overwhelming focus is on the findings of the “gold team” that has been examining Trump and White House advisers’ roles in orchestrating a multi-part strategy to overturn the 2020 election, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.The move to home in on Trump, principally driven by the select committee’s vice-chair, Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, was in part because the actions of the former president – which a federal judge has said probably violated several criminal statutes – were particularly compelling, multiple sources said.But that fixation on Trump has exposed in recent weeks a deepening rift on the panel, with the since-departed lawyers on the other teams, including the “blue team” examining issues like intelligence failures by the FBI, angered that their findings were set to be relegated to appendices.The simmering discontent from some of the current and former staff has since reached the panel’s members, and an NBC News story earlier this month has since prompted discussions about changing some of the eight chapters in the final report, though they were already broadly complete.‘Trump should be held accountable’: Guardian readers on the Capitol attack hearingsRead moreThe members, one of the sources said, have discussed inserting some of the findings of the non-gold team investigators in the January 6 narrative. But the members have been reluctant to highlight conduct by Trump’s allies that might have been unsavory but probably not criminal.The final report is still scheduled to be released in the middle of December, and after the Senate runoff election in Georgia, where the Trump-backed candidate Herschel Walker trailed the Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock in the general election in a disappointing midterms for the GOP.At the same time, the select committee is weighing what potential criminal and civil referrals to the justice department might involve; the panel was scheduled on Tuesday to receive a briefing from a special subcommittee led by congressman Jamie Raskin examining the matter.The subcommittee, which also involves Cheney, Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren – members with a legal background, or, in the case of Schiff, prosecutorial experience – has also been tasked with resolving other outstanding issues including how to respond to Trump’s lawsuit against his subpoena.A spokesman for the panel could not immediately be reached for comment.The question of whether and what referrals to make to the justice department has hovered over the investigation for months since the select committee’s lawyers came to believe that Trump was involved in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruct Congress over January 6.‘Devoid of shame’: January 6 cop Michael Fanone on Trump’s Republican partyRead moreThe select committee won a substantial victory in March when the US district court judge David Carter ruled that Trump “likely” committed multiple felonies in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and stop the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win.But some members on the panel in recent months have questioned the need for referrals to the justice department, which has ramped up its investigation into the Capitol attack and issued subpoenas to Trump’s allies demanding appearances before at least two grand juries in Washington.The attorney general, Merrick Garland, last week appointed Jack Smith to serve as special counsel overseeing the probe into whether Trump mishandled national security materials and obstructed justice, as well as key elements of the criminal inquiry into the Capitol attack.And even before the appointment of Smith as special counsel, the department asked former vice-president Mike Pence whether he might voluntarily testify to a grand jury hearing evidence about efforts to stop the certification on January 6, the New York Times earlier reported.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsLiz CheneynewsReuse this content More