(Bloomberg) -- The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack will complete its 17-month probe with votes Monday on recommendations for the first-ever criminal prosecution of a former president, with offenses including insurrection, according to people familiar with plans.
The committee session, to be shown live beginning 1 p.m. Washington time by major television networks, follows a series of eight hearings in which the panel presented a case that Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election broke the law and incited the deadly assault on the Capitol.
The nine-member, bipartisan panel is also expected to vote on and release at least in part a final report on its investigation along with supporting documents backing criminal referrals against Trump and several associates, and proposed civil actions against others, the people said.
The hearings over the spring and summer dominated their television time slots with riveting insider accounts of Trump's machinations, startling video of violence, and new disclosures of Trump's efforts to pressure state officials and the Justice Department to back unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud.
Representative Adam Schiff, a member of the panel and a former federal prosecutor, said Sunday he believes there is sufficient evidence to charge Trump with multiple crimes, including insurrection. The former president's actions surrounding the 2021 attack on the Capitol are a “pretty good match” for a criminal insurrection charge, he said.
“In terms of the criminal statute, if you can prove that someone incited insurrection, that is they incited violence against the government — or they gave aid and comfort to those who did — that violates that law,” Schiff said on CNN's “State of the Union.”
Any subsequent conviction on an insurrection charge could complicate Trump's reelection effort. Under the Constitution's 14th amendment, anyone who has previously taken an oath to support the constitution — which presidents and members of Congress must do — is barred from federal office if they engage in insurrection.
Schiff declined to confirm in the CNN interview what charges the panel is considering, but people familiar with the plans said committee will also vote on criminal referrals against Trump for obstructing an official government proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the US.
Referrals also are being considered for several former Trump associates, including his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, legal advisers John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, according to people familiar with the committee's closed-door deliberations.
A group of House Republicans plans to counter the committee's findings with a “shadow” report they say will focus on security and law-enforcement failures revealed in the attack.
No Precedent
Trump's 2024 re-election bid, launched in November, is already beset by early troubles. In recent weeks, his company has been convicted of tax fraud, his dinner with a white supremacist raised a furor and polls show his support cratering after disappointing Republican results in midterm elections. Surveys show Trump losing to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary and to Democrat President Joe Biden in a hypothetical re-match.
A criminal referral wouldn't have a formal legal impact, but it would be a powerful statement. And it would add to add to Trump's mounting legal problems, including a federal special counsel's investigation of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents after leaving office. A Georgia grand jury also is probing his attempts to pressure state election officials.
No sitting or former president has been tried for a crime. President Gerald Ford preempted charges against Richard Nixon by pardoning him following the Watergate scandal.
At the end of his presidential term, Bill Clinton agreed to a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license and $25,000 fine in a deal with independent counsel Robert Ray not to bring criminal charges against him for lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
--With assistance from .
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