The decision by the House committee investigating last year’s riot at the U.S. Capitol to refer Donald Trump for criminal prosecution was unsurprising. The committee had spent nearly a year and a half building its case, which it presented in focused detail at its final hearing on Monday. Issuing criminal referrals to the Department of Justice was within the panel’s mandate. It was a lamentable move nonetheless.
There’s no question that the committee — made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans — found evidence of abominable conduct by Trump that day. The former president bears responsibility for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, encouraging a mob to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory, and refusing to act while his supporters laid violent siege to the Capitol. Over the course of its investigation, the committee interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, including many of Trump’s closest aides, his son-in-law and his eldest daughter.
Among the wealth of details the probe uncovered were first-hand accounts of the former president’s attempts to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to reject the Electoral College slates of several swing states and instead declare Trump the victor. Even as rioters roamed the halls of Congress on Jan. 6 chanting, “Hang Mike Pence” — coming, the committee revealed, within 40 feet of Pence’s security detail — Trump tweeted that the vice president “didn’t have the courage ... to protect our country.”
