“January 6 Committee recommends DOJ pursue criminal charges against Trump

The House Committee to Investigate the Storming of the Capitol has released a report with the results of its year and a half of work. It is more than eight hundred pages in eight chapters, the first of which is titled “The Big Lie”: referring to Trump’s claims that the election was “stolen from him”. The main conclusion is that the primary responsibility for the events of January 6 lies with one man – Donald Trump. Based on the evidence gathered, the Committee formally recommends that the DOJ initiate criminal proceedings against the former president and bar him from future public office.

As legal experts note, the Jan. 6 Committee has conducted a truly quality investigation. Especially when you consider that most of the witnesses refused to testify, citing the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, that is, for fear of testifying against themselves under oath. This includes such notable figures as Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, who advised Trump. He claimed that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, and used that argument to encourage his supporters to storm the Capitol, even though none of the witnesses questioned by the committee ever provided evidence of fraud.

The committee members had to reconstruct the events of January 6, based on the testimony of minor witnesses, analysis of correspondence, telephone conversations, and publications in the social networks. And the following picture emerged:

“Mr. Trump made key mistakes from 1:10 p.m., when he finished his speech at the rally, calling on supporters to march to the Capitol, to 4:17 p.m., when he finally, grudgingly, told supporters to disperse to their homes. For those 187 minutes, he deliberately neglected his constitutional duty to faithfully enforce the law,” said Virginia Congresswoman Elaine Luria. Congressmen described it as criminal negligence: the then president did not engage the police or the National Guard to stop the riots.

But it’s not just inaction. Trump took several steps that the “January 6 Committee” saw as calls and incitement to sedition. Here’s what then-White House staffer Nicholas Luna, who unwittingly witnessed Trump’s phone conversation with Vice President Pence (who was refusing to challenge the election results, which Congress was just approving at the time), told congressional investigators

“I brought the memo,” Moon says. – “And as I recall, I heard the word ‘slug’ said into the tube. That’s what he (Trump) said: “You’re a slug. And you will be a slug.” I remembered that so well because ‘slug’ was the last word I expected to hear from the president.”

According to Igor Slabykh, the “January 6 Committee” did a great job.

Otherwise, the congressmen would not have recommended that the DOJ prosecute Donald Trump and John Eastman the conservative lawyer who sought legislative loopholes for Trump to stay in power despite losing the election. This suggests that the committee is confident in its evidence on four criminal counts.

It is up to the Ministry of Justice and, in particular, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith to decide which of them will be charged and, more importantly, whether they will be. He was appointed by the head of the Justice Department, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, as soon as Trump announced his desire to run for president again. The point is that Garland himself can be fired by the head of the White House from his ministerial post, but it will be harder to do the same with the special prosecutor. Besides, these appointees are career lawyers who have no sympathy for one party or another. They have more credibility.