The January 6 Committee is taking a significant step toward deciding whether to send criminal referrals to the Justice Department, according to a member of the panel.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) confirmed to CBS News that a subcommittee was set to meet on Sunday as part of that process in the final days before a report is expected to be released to the public later this month.
“We are as a subcommittee, several of us that were charged with making the recommendation about referrals, [are] going to be making that recommendation to full committee today,” Schiff told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan. “We will be releasing a report, I think around the 21st, that will include whatever decision we’ve made on referrals.”
"We're all in agreement, there's evidence of criminality here"
House Jan 6 Cmte member Adam Schiff (D-CA) tells @FaceTheNation a subcommittee will make a recommendation today to the House Jan 6 panel about criminal referrals.. with expected announcement publicly on Dec 21 pic.twitter.com/0G4fF1KYWx
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) December 11, 2022
Members of the House select committee have been investigating the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, and efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election. former President Donald Trump and his supporters have been heavily critical of the inquiry and the committee’s two Republican members, Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).
Recent reports have indicated that at least four people could be the subject of criminal referrals, including Trump, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyer John Eastman, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Schiff said the process includes examining the evidence as well as the “impact” of making a referral. “I think we’re all certainly in agreement that there is evidence of criminality here and we want to make sure that the Justice Department is aware of that,” he added.
Regardless of whether the January 6 Committee makes any referrals, the Justice Department can use the evidence presented in open hearings and in the panel’s report “to further their investigations,” Schiff stressed.
“I think it makes an important statement, not a political one, but a statement about the evidence of an attack on the institutions of our democracy and the peaceful transfer of power, that Congress examining an attack on itself is willing to report criminality,” he added.