Four charges are being sought against Trump by the Capitol riot committee
In a unanimous vote, the committee, which was led by Democrats, recommended that criminal charges be brought against President Trump.
A fresh clip of former Trump aide Hope Hicks warning him about his legacy was also shown on the panel.
On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters stormed Congress, preventing Joe Biden from being sworn in as president.
Mr. Trump has issued a statement calling the panel a “kangaroo court” and denying any wrongdoing on his part.
The House select committee investigating the riot concluded its work on Monday, recommending that Mr. Trump be indicted on four counts:
- Inciting, assisting, aiding or comforting an insurrection
- Obstruction of an official proceeding
- Conspiracy to defraud the United States
- Conspiracy to make a false statement
The Department of Justice is free to ignore a referral from a Congressional committee, even though its prosecutors are currently debating whether to press charges against President Trump.
The chairman of the panel has called the proposed charges a “roadmap to justice,” despite the largely symbolic nature of the panel’s actions.
On Monday, a spokesman for the Justice Department wouldn’t answer questions about the referral.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a committee member, defined an insurrection as “An insurrection is a rebellion against the authority of the United States,”
According to the Constitution, this constitutes a serious federal crime.
On Monday, the seven Democrats and two Republicans on the panel issued a preliminary executive summary of their 161-page report.
It claimed that both before and during the Capitol riot, Mr. Trump was involved in a “multi-part conspiracy” to subvert the will of the people.
The House committee claims Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen and then pressed state officials, the DOJ, and even his own vice president to help him overturn his loss. They say he started the riot in Congress as a last-ditch effort to prevent Mr. Biden’s peaceful ascension to power.
On Wednesday, the hundreds-page report will be made public.
On Monday, the panel also released a new video from their deposition with longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, who said she had warned Mr. Trump that he and his team were “damaging his legacy” by continuing to make false claims about the election.
She claimed that Mr. Trump had dismissed her worries.
“Something along the lines of, ‘Nobody will care about my legacy if I lose, so that won’t matter,'” she testified the former Republican president said.
“‘The only thing that matters is winning.'”
For not being “forthcoming” with investigators, the committee also criticised Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and a former White House aide.
It was stated in the report that both Ms. Trump and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany “displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues, or were not otherwise as frank or direct” as other aides to Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, which he launched last month, issued a statement accusing the committee of holding “show trials by Never Trump partisans who are a stain on this country’s history.”
To mock our democracy and insult the intelligence of the American people, this “Kangaroo court” has been nothing more than a “vanity project.”
Four Republicans, including Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, will be referred to the House ethics committee for failing to cooperate with the committee, the panel said.
Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and the committee’s chairman, said, “If we are to survive as a nation of laws and democracy, this can never happen again.”
The collapse of our democratic system is a direct result of a breach of faith. That trust was broken by Donald Trump,” he continued.
The number of people charged in connection with the riot in the Capitol has risen above 900.