As the January 6 select committee continues with its hearings on the Capitol riot and the months of activity that led up to it, the panel’s members are at odds on a key question: whether they will refer Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation.
Speaking after Monday’s hearing, which focused on the genesis of Mr Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen, committee chair Bennie Thompson told a gaggle of reporters that there was no referral in the works.
“No, that’s not our job,” he said. “Our job is to look at the facts and circumstances around January 6, what caused it and make recommendations after that.”
Standing next to him, his colleague Zoe Lofgren remarked: “We’re legislators, they’re the prosecutors.”
However, some of Mr Thompson’s other colleagues openly rebutted his remarks, some more bluntly than others.
Vice-chair Liz Cheney, with whom Mr Thompson is said to have a good relationship, tweeted that “The January 6th Select Committee has not issued a conclusion regarding potential criminal referrals. We will announce a decision on that at an appropriate time.”
She was joined in her insistence by Elaine Luria, who wrote that the panel “has yet to vote on whether we will recommend criminal referrals to the Department of Justice” – and that “if criminal activity occurred, it is our responsibility to report that activity to the DOJ”.
If the question at issue is whether a referral sits within the committee’s formal remit, a statement from a panel spokesperson offered no sign that a clear consensus has been reached.
“The Select Committee has no authority to prosecute individuals, but is rather tasked with developing the facts surrounding the January 6th riot at the Capitol,” the staffer told CNN.
“Right now, the committee is focused on presenting our findings to the American people in our hearings and in our report. Our investigation is ongoing and we will continue to gather all relevant information as we present facts, offer recommendations and, if warranted, make criminal referrals.”
Outside of the question of its legal remit, however, the committee has a political problem to navigate as it interfaces with the Justice Department: how to avoid the appearance that it is putting pressure on an agency belonging to a separate and independent branch of government to investigate and charge political opponents.
This is an allegation often levelled against Donald Trump that the the committee is exploring in its own work, with one of its upcoming sessions explicitly focused on Mr Trump’s efforts to pressure the judiciary. On the panel will be former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, and Steven Engel, who led the White House Office of Legal Counsel.
However, the hearing at which the three were meant to appear was abruptly postponed at one day’s notice without a clear official explanation.
