3.2.22
The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol said Wednesday for the first time that its evidence suggests crimes may have been committed by former President Donald Trump and his associates in the failed effort to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Trump and his associates engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” to prevent Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College, the House committee said in a court filing. Trump and those working with him spread false information about the outcome of the presidential election and pressured state officials to overturn the results, potentially violating multiple federal laws, the panel said. “The Select Committee also has a good-faith basis for concluding that the President and members of his Campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States,” the committee wrote in a filing submitted in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California.
The filing represents the most comprehensive look yet at the findings of the Jan. 6 committee, which is investigating the violent insurrection of Trump’s supporters in an effort to ensure that nothing like it happens again. While the panel can’t pursue criminal charges, members want to provide the public a thorough account of the attack, in which hundreds of people brutally beat police, pushed through windows and doors and interrupted the certification of Biden’s win. So far, lawmakers and investigators have interviewed hundreds of people, including members of Trump’s family and his chief of staff as well as his allies in the seven swing states where the former president tried and failed to prove he won. The panel has also sought out information from members of Congress and subpoenaed records and testimony from top social media platforms they believe had a hand in the spreading of election misinformation. The committee is expected to fully release its findings in a lengthy report or series of reports later this year, ahead of the midterm elections. The panel is also planning days or weeks of hearings starting in April with some of the witnesses who testified.
