The House committee investigating January 6 will be holding further public proceedings on Monday, according to new remarks from chairperson Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).
During these proceedings, members will vote on what will apparently be the issuance of criminal referrals and the panel’s expected final report, according to Thompson. A referral would essentially constitute a formal recommendation for criminal charges from the Justice Department against some set of individuals, a list that reporting suggests could include Trump himself along with top allies like Rudy Giuliani. The panel has previously argued there was an appearance of at least potential criminal activity in seeking records from past Trump lawyer John Eastman, who could be another target of a recommendation for criminal prosecution. The accompanying report on the committee’s investigation is set to be issued on Wednesday, December 21, marking an end — at least in large part — to a lengthy probe in which panel investigators have heard from hundreds upon hundreds of people and collected massive amounts of evidence.
A subcommittee on the panel comprised of four committee members with legal backgrounds, including Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney, recently examined questions surrounding the possibility of criminal referrals, and the full committee met to go over some of investigators’ conclusions this past weekend. Although Schiff, a Democratic Congressman from California, has declined to provide certain specifics about the panel’s plan of action, including names under consideration, he said in an interview also conducted on Sunday that he believed criminal activity was involved in the schemes under scrutiny by the committee, and with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) recently speaking specifically in favor of criminal referrals while Schiff says members are broadly in agreement, it seems all-but-confirmed the committee will be approving criminal referrals implicating key figures involved in these efforts next Monday.
There was also a recently made push to federal authorities for an intensified look at schemes to copy data from election systems in key states, including Georgia, where past Trump attorney and infamous election denier Sidney Powell was involved with supporting the efforts of a firm called SullivanStrickler, which worked on data collection in several states. A Powell nonprofit even provided payment apparently for at least some of the firm’s work. Jack Smith, the recently selected special counsel handling two broad investigations involving Trump, has issued subpoenas to election officials in several states, including just recently revealed pushes for records of communications with Trump and nearly two dozen specific figures around him. States targeted with subpoenas — at various levels in each — include Nevada, Michigan, and Georgia.
