Jan 6 committee says meeting about possible criminal referrals was ‘successful’

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A Sunday meeting of the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection was “successful,” a source toldCNN.

Members of the committee, which has worked throughout the year to shed light on what happened in the build-up to the Capitol riot that threatened American democracy in 2021, met on Sunday afternoon to discuss potential criminal referrals for a group of people connected to the effort to overturn the result of the presidential election.

The subcommittee charged with investigating criminal referrals made its recommendations at the meeting. CNN reported that it is not yet known whether those recommendations were adopted outright or changed by the full committee. The committee is planning to announce its decision on December 21.

A criminal referral from the committee would not carry any immediate consequences, as the committee does not have any prosecutorial power. The Department of Justice has opened its own investigation into the January 6 attack, and criminal charges could stem from that investigation.

Nevertheless, the committee has made clear that it views its criminal referral recommendations as a statement of its findings about what happened on January 6 and who should be held responsible.

Four individuals potentially in line for criminal referrals are former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, lawyer John Eastman, former Donald Trump lawyer and New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark.

All four men were reportedly heavily involved in efforts to overturn the result of the presidential election, in which President Joe Biden beat Mr Trump by a margin of 74 electoral votes. It is not clear exactly what the suggested charges against those four men might be, nor is it clear how many other individuals may be under consideration for criminal referrals.

Committee members reportedly feel that Mr Trump and his close allies behaved in a criminal manner when they orchestrated the multi-pronged plot to overturn the election result and keep Mr Trump in power, though it is not clear that they’ve always been in agreement on what to do in response.

“We are in common agreement about what our approach should be. I’m not ready or authorized at this point to tell you what that is,” Rep Adam Schiff, a Democrat on the committee, said on the CBS programme Face the Nation just prior to the meeting on Sunday. “I think we are all certainly in agreement that there is evidence of criminality here. And we want to make sure that the Justice Department is aware of that.”