Live updates: Jan. 6 committee votes to issue criminal referrals against Trump (2024)

The Jan. 6 committee used itsfinal public meetingMonday to summarize its 17-month investigation with a simple closing statement: All roads lead toDonald Trump.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

The committee refers Trump to the DOJ

For months, the committee went back-and-forth over whether it would refer Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. On Monday, the committee didn’t equivocate.

The committee referred Trump to DOJ on at least four criminal charges, while saying in its executive summary, released after the meeting, it had evidence of possible charges of conspiring to injure or impede an officer and seditious conspiracy.

In practice, the referral is effectively a symbolic measure. It does not require the Justice Department to act, and regardless, Attorney General Merrick Garland has already appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to take on two investigations related to Trump, including the Jan. 6 investigation.

But the formal criminal referrals and the unveiling of its report this week underscore how much the Jan. 6 committee dug up and revealed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the lead-up to Jan. 6. Now the ball is in the Justice Department’s court.

All roads lead to Trump

Committee members repeatedly pointed to Trump’s personal involvement in nearly every part of the broader plot to overturn the 2020 election and focused squarely on his role in the violence that unfolded on Jan. 6.

Monday’s presentation was a compelling closing salvo for the committee, which said Trump sought to break “the foundation of American democracy.” Members stressed that Trump knew the election was not stolen but continued to push baseless claims about widespread voter fraud in an effort to upend Joe Biden’s legitimate victory.

Visually reinforcing their argument

The committee relied once again on video — an effective and memorable tool the panel has used throughout its hearings with closed-door witness testimony and harrowing scenes from the violent attack on the Capitol, to make an its case against Trump.

The montage went step-by-step through Trump’s efforts to block his election loss, showed how his attacks upended the lives of election workers and played body-cam footage of officers attacked by rioters.

A bipartisan, if one-sided, endeavor

Though GOP lawmakers have called the committee partisan, the panel is, in fact, bipartisan.

Two Republicans who volunteered to join the committee: Rep. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. They both brought GOP staff members along with them who worked for the committee.

To be sure, Cheney and Kinzinger are outliers in their caucus because they are anti-Trump. And that is the core of Trump’s critiques of the committee — that it stacked with Trump haters. Still, even if they oppose Trump, Cheney and Kinzinger are still deeply conservative Republicans.

No matter what Trump and his allies say, Democrats will forever be able to accurately assert that the panel’s findings, conclusions, its final report and its criminal referrals are bipartisan.

Read more takeaways here

After the Jan. 6 committee's final public session Monday, some people named in the summary of the final report, as well as some of those who were referred by the committee, are reacting to the conclusion to the nearly year and a half investigation.

The committee approved a criminal referral for three charges against former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department. The former president responded on Truth Social, saying that the committee’s actions would make “him stronger” and indicated that the referrals today were part of a larger attempt to stop him from running for President in 2024.

Trump’s base has had a history of galvanizing behind him when Trump is in legal peril, including when he Mar-a-Lago home was searched by the FBI. As Trump’s political support has seemingly waned in recent weeks, it is unclear that these criminal referrals will have the same effect.

The committee said it was also advancing criminal referrals for attorney John Eastman and "others" to the Justice Department for investigation and potential prosecution.

There is evidence to justify an Eastman referral to DOJ on obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, the committee said Monday.Raskin said that the committee believed the conduct of others may also warrant Justice Department investigation and prosecution, but those referrals were not identifiedon Monday.

Eastman decried the committee’s “Stalinist” tactics said he hadnotyet received a subpoena in the DOJ criminal probe now being led by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

He said that he had a “whole lot of information” to defend himself if federal prosecutors decided to bring a case against him. He also said that a federal judge “got it wrong” when the judge concluded that a handful of Eastman’s emails showed evidence of a crime.

Other referrals: The House select committee is referring four members of Congress to the House’s Ethics Committee after those members did not comply with the subpoenas from the panel.

An executive summary released after the meeting identifies the four Republicans as GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.

Russell Dye, a spokesperson for Rep. Jim Jordan, called the referral a "partisan and political stunt" by the committee. In a statement, he claimed the panel "knowingly altered evidence, blocked minority representation on a Committee for the first time in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives, and failed to respond to Mr. Jordan’s numerous letters and concerns surrounding the politicization and legitimacy of the Committee’s work.”

CNN has also reached out to the other lawmakers.

Others named in the summary: In addition, several others are named as being participants in the conspiracies the committee is linking to Trump, including then-DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark and Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, as well as Trump-tied lawyers Kenneth Chesebro and Rudy Giuliani.

Ted Goodman, communications and political advisor to Rudy Giuliani, a former lawyer for Donald Trump and former mayor of New York City, said in a statement: "Mayor Rudy Giuliani wasn't drinking election night and we have multiple in-person witnesses on the record to back this up. Anyone saying otherwise is either mistaken or shamefully lying about Mayor Giuliani — an honest, good American who has dedicated his life to serving others and doing the right thing."

The House select committee said in an executive summary of its final report that on election night in 2020, “the only advisor present who supported President Trump’s inclination to declare victory was Rudolph Giuliani, who appeared to be inebriated,” citing testimony the panel received.

Senate Republicans are divided over the Jan. 6 investigation — and also over Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell's comments saying the "entire nation" blames former President Donald Trump for the attack.

Asked if he agrees, Sen. Rick Scott said, "I haven't seen a poll like that."

While some like Sen. Mitt Romney agreed with McConnell, others refused to go that far.

Sen. John Cornyn, a member of McConnell's leadership team, said the investigation was not credible. Asked if he agreed with McConnell's statement, Cornyn wouldn't say, but added, "I don't dispute that people saw it with their own eyes."

Sen. Josh Hawley declined to comment on McConnell and dismissed the committee's referral to the Justice Department.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville also answered "no" when asked if he agreed with McConnell, adding of the entire investigation that "this committee is self-serving. We've got a lot more problems than rehashing this whole thing."

"There's a lot of people responsible," Tuberville said.

Sen. Kevin Cramer said, "Idon't know who he said was responsible but to me, the people that were responsible for January 6 were the people that illegally came into the building, people that stormed over barriers and broke through windows and doors and illegally trespassed in the United States Capitol."

"I think it's a cop out to blame somebody other than the actual perpetrators of crimes, generally. So I don't like to take criminals off the hook too easily," Cramer added.

The end is near — at least for the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The panel held its final public session Monday where it voted on its final report and approved a criminal referral for several charges against former President Donald Trump.

So here's what happens next: Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson said the full report will come out Wednesday. This will be a historical document that will be studied for generations — never before has a sitting president tried to steal a second term.

Additional "transcripts and documents" will be released before the end of the year, Thompson said.

The sheer volume of this material can't be overstated. The panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, likely generating tens of thousands of pages of transcripts. Many of these interviews were filmed, which means the panel has hundreds of hours of footage that it might release very soon.

These upcoming releases will provide fodder to Trump's critics. But it will also grant a key demand from some of Trump's allies — that the panel disclose the full context of its interviews. Up until this point, the panel has been very selective about which snippets of witness interviews got played at public hearings.

The current Congress ends on January 3, 2023, and that's when the committee will cease to exist. But the Justice Department investigation, overseen by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by US Attorney General Merrick Garland, continues.

Of the committee's nine members, four won't be returning to Congress. Besides Republican vice-chair Rep. Liz Cheney and Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida is retiring, and Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia was one of the handful of House Democratic incumbents who lost their seats in the 2022 midterms last month.

For months, the Jan. 6 committee went back-and-forth over whether it would refer former President Donald Trump to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. On Monday, the committee didn’t equivocate.

The committee referred Trump to the DOJ on at least four criminal charges, including:

The panel said in its executive summary that it had evidence of possible charges of conspiring to injure or impede an officer and seditious conspiracy.

So what is a criminal referral? A referral represents a recommendation that the Justice Department investigate and look at charging the individuals in question. The House committee’s final report – to be released Wednesday – will provide justification from the panel’s investigation for recommending the charges.

In practice, the referral is effectively a symbolic measure. It does not require the Justice Department to act, and regardless, Attorney General Merrick Garland has already appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to take on two investigations related to Trump, including the Jan. 6 investigation.

But the formal criminal referrals and the unveiling of its report this week underscore how much the Jan. 6 committee dug up and revealed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the lead-up to Jan. 6. Now the ball is in the Justice Department’s court.

Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said during Monday's meeting that he has “every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a road map to justice, and that the agencies and institutions responsible for ensuring justice under the law will use the information we’ve provided to aid in their work.”

After the panel's meeting, Thompson told CNN that the evidence that supports the panel's decision to refer Trump to the DOJ is "clear," adding that he is "convinced" that the department will ultimately charge Trump.

CNN's Tierney Sneed contributed reporting to this post.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who serves on the subcommittee of the Jan. 6 select committee responsible for presenting criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, laid out how panel members arrived at the decisions presented during Monday's final public session.

Asked about process offenses, such as witness tampering or perjury, Raskin said “as evidence is assembled about that, I hope that those will be charged as well. You cannot suborn perjury, you cannot obstruct justice, you cannot interfere with a congressional proceeding.” However, Raskin did not specify who these potential charges related to in the panel’s investigation.

In terms of unanswered questions left by the committee, Raskin was asked if the panel ever solved the situation with the pipe bombs on Jan. 6 and said, “I don’t believe there have been any updates since we first looked int to. Those are unsolved crimes.”

Check out photos from the last Jan. 6 hearings here.

Jan. 6 committee members, Reps. Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff, explained that more associates of former President Donald Trump were not directly referred to the Department of Justice because the committee wanted to focus on those with “abundant evidence” against them.

Raskin noted that the DOJ will receive the full report and can decide if anyone else discussed merits further investigation.

“We wanted to proceed in such a way that we could all feel certain that these were people where evidence exists that they engaged in criminal offenses against our country,” he added.

Schiff said, “The long and the short of it is we possess evidence that up until this release, the Justice Department may not have, they possess evidence that we don't have, and the cumulative impact of all that evidence will hopefully lead to justice for those that have broken the law here.”

Raskin promised that they would cooperate with the Justice Department “quickly," while Schiff added that the committee expects evidence will start to be made available to both the DOJ and the public starting Wednesday.

Asked to explain why those four House Republicans were referred to House Ethics in particular, Schiff pointed out that these four failed to comply with a congressional subpoena, which is easier to prove.

After extensive investigation, the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol held its final public meeting Monday where they voted on their final report and approved a series of criminal referrals — including against former President Donald Trump and others in his orbit.

The final report is expected to be released publicly Wednesday.

Here are the key things that happened at the committee’s last public session: