The House committee investigating the Capitol riot will make its final public presentation on Monday about the unprecedented effort by Donald Trump to overturn the results of the presidential election he lost in 2020.
The committee has called it an “attempted coup” that warrants criminal prosecution from the Justice Department.
That is expected to be the committee’s closing argument as it wraps up a year-and-a-half-long inquiry and prepares to release a final report detailing its findings about the insurrection in the US capital on January 6, 2021.
The committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans is set to dissolve at the end of the year.
– Referring a president
The committee is expected to make both criminal and civil referrals against the former president and his allies, who, according to lawmakers, broke the law or committed ethical violations.
“We are focused on key players where there is sufficient evidence or abundant evidence that they committed crimes,” Democrat representative Jamie Raskin said last week.
“We’re focused on crimes that go right to the heart of the constitutional order, such that the Congress can’t remain silent.”
The committee’s chairman, Democrat representative Bennie Thompson, said the referrals may include criminal, ethics violations, legal misconduct and campaign finance violations.
It will fall to federal prosecutors to decide whether to bring charges.
Lawmakers have suggested their recommended charges against Mr Trump could include conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and insurrection.
Even though they are non-binding, the recommendations by the committee would add to the political pressure on the Justice Department as special counsel Jack Smith conducts an investigation into the events.
– A record for history
Lawmakers have promised that Monday’s session will include a preview of the committee’s final report, expected to be released on Wednesday.
The panel will vote on adopting the official record, effectively authorising the release of the report to the public.
It will roughly mirror the series of public hearings the committee held in the summer that detailed the various facets of the investigation, including the role of extremist groups in the violence, Mr Trump’s attempt to enlist the Justice Department in his schemes and his co-ordination with GOP lawmakers to overturn the election results.
Additional evidence, including some of the massive trove of video footage and testimony the committee collected, is expected to be released publicly before the end of the year.
– Legislative changes
As the committee convenes one final time, a major legislative response to the insurrection could be on the fast-track to passage.
Lawmakers are expected to overhaul the arcane election law that Mr Trump tried to subvert after his 2020 election defeat by including legislative changes in a year-end spending bill.
The proposed overhaul of the Electoral Count Act is one of the many by-products of the attack on the Capitol.
A group of bipartisan lawmakers has been working on the legislation since the insurrection.
Mr Trump and his allies tried to find loopholes in that law before the congressional certification of the 2020 vote as the former president worked to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden and unsuccessfully pressured Mike Pence to go along.
The Bill, if passed, would amend the 19th-century law that, along with the Constitution, governs how states and Congress certify electors and declare presidential election winners, ensuring the popular vote from each state is protected from manipulation and that Congress does not arbitrarily decide presidential elections.
The committee is also expected to release its own legislative proposals in its final report, with ideas for how to strengthen and expand the guardrails that protected the Electoral College certification in 2021.
Since its formation, the January 6 committee has tried to build a record for history and deepen the public’s understanding of what led to the Capitol attack and the individuals involved in it.
“We obviously want to complete the story for the American people,” Mr Raskin said.
“Everybody has come on a journey with us and we want a satisfactory conclusion, such that people feel that Congress has done its job.”
After conducting thousands of interviews — ranging from Trump Cabinet secretaries to members of his own family — and obtaining tens of thousands of documents, congressional investigators say they have created the most comprehensive look at the worst attack on the Capitol in two centuries.
The 16-month investigation has also provided a road map of sorts for criminal investigations, influencing the probes of Mr Trump and January 6 that are progressing at the local, state and federal level.
Monday’s session will be the last word for the committee as its temporary, or “select,” committee status expires at the end of the current Congress.
Once Republicans take the majority next year, they are not expected to renew the committee, instead launching a slew of investigations that will focus on the Biden administration and the president’s family.
