The Justice Department must now rule on criminal prosecutions and possible charges against 76-year-old Republican Donald Trump. Lawmakers approved the four counts of indictment in the last public session of the House Committee of Inquiry after a year and a half of investigations. The recommendation is not legally binding, but it is symbolically significant: it is the first time in US history that Congress has recommended criminal prosecution of a former president.
It also adds to the pressure on the Justice Department in its Trump investigation. Attorney General Merrick Garland had already appointed a special prosecutor against the former president in mid-November.
Representative Jamie Raskin said on Monday that evidence compiled by the U-Committee shows that Trump’s intent was to prevent the peaceful transfer of power enshrined in the US Constitution after the 2020 presidential election. .
“We don’t have a justice system where foot soldiers go to jail and leaders and leaders get away with it,” said the Democratic Party lawmaker. Conservative Republican Representative Liz Cheney said Trump, who has already entered the 2024 presidential race, is “unable” to hold public office again.
“Liz Chaney”
Trump initially responded with just one sentence on his Truth Social online platform, in which he misspelled Cheney’s name: “But Liz Chaney lost with a record 40 points.”
The former president was obviously referring to the clear defeat of his toughest internal critic in the Republican primaries ahead of the November 8 parliamentary elections. Trump’s son Eric called the investigative committee a “fanatically partisan anti-Trump group” and a “mock court” on Truth Social.
Radical Trump supporters invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to prevent confirmation of the victory of Democrat Joe Biden in the November 2020 presidential election. The invasion of Congress with five dead shook the United States and caused international horror.
The members of the investigative committee – seven Democrats and two Republicans – consider Trump primarily responsible for the violence. After the election, the right-wing populist refused to concede defeat and spread accusations of voter fraud that were often refuted.
He lobbied election officials in several states to overturn the election result and urged his Vice President Mike Pence to block final confirmation of Biden’s victory in Congress. On January 6, 2021, Trump then called on his supporters gathered in Washington to march to the Capitol and fight “whatever the hell”.
The House of Representatives had already started impeachment proceedings against Trump after the Capitol was invaded, but the Senate failed. In the summer of 2021, a parliamentary commission of inquiry began its work to uncover the background to the Capitol invasion. The panel will publish its final report on Wednesday.
The US federal judiciary is likely to incorporate the lawmakers’ findings into its own investigations of Trump. Attorney General Jack Smith, appointed special counsel by Attorney General Garland in November, is investigating Trump’s role in the Capitol storming and, in general, the question of a possible impediment to the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election.
A second line of investigation is the secret documents Trump took from the White House to his private Mar-a-Lago estate in the US state of Florida in early 2021, towards the end of his term.
(APA)