|
Listen to this article here
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, said Wednesday that the panel’s long-awaited final report will be publicized on Wednesday, Dec. 21.
Thompson stated the report’s release would be coupled with some form of public presentation, the details of which are still being worked out by committee members.
The report and accompanying materials will be posted online, Thompson clarified.
ABC News reports he also said that any decisions regarding potential criminal referrals will come the same day, and will be voted on publicly.
Admittedly, criminal referrals would largely be symbolic in nature. The committee lacks prosecutorial powers, and the Justice Department does not need a referral from Congress to investigate crimes as it has its own criminal investigations into the Capitol attack ongoing.
The committee is weighing criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump and a number of his closest allies, multiple sources tell CNN.
Jan. 6 final report announced days after Trump Organization found guilty
On Tuesday, the conviction of two Trump Organization companies for tax fraud and other crimes could prove insurmountable for former President Donald Trump’s hotel and real estate businesses, which are likely to face challenges in lining up lenders, insurers and government contracts, according to legal experts following the ruling.
“It spells doom for the Trump Organization — I really see it as a death knell,” Bennett Gershman, a professor at Pace University’s law school and a former prosecutor in the New York State Anti-Corruption Office, told CBS MoneyWatch. “It would be implausible for any responsible lending institution, bank, insurance company or institutions that provide financial support for companies to have anything to do with the Trump Organization now.”
The verdict, handed down on Tuesday, found the two companies — the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation — guilty on all 17 criminal counts.
Although the Trump Organization could face up to $1.6 million in fines, legal experts said the penalty is negligible compared with the potential impact of collateral consequences, especially for a business that relies on banks and insurers to operate its hotels, golf courses and other properties.
A remaining question with respect to the committee is just how broad they will go in outlining possible illegal behavior among Trump’s allies. “This is what we’re discussing as we go into the last days of our work on this important investigation,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the committee’s members, said in a Wednesday morning interview on NPR.
That includes then-chief of staff Mark Meadows as well as Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump weighed installing as attorney general to force an investigation into his baseless claims of election fraud.
Trump’s GOP grip is loosening
After a slew of Trump-endorsed candidates tasted defeat in the midterm elections, along with the most recently hand-picked Herschel Walker, GOP voters and public defenders have turned on their once deified leader.
Among those once loyal followers, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham said shortly after Tuesday’s defeat, “We felt this coming. To me, it never felt like the Senate Republicans wanted this guy in office. He was a Trump pick, they didn’t like that … but there wasn’t the intensity on the part of the Republicans as there was on the part of Democrats,”
She continued, “We have the same people in place in leadership. The same people in place, apparently, at the RNC [Republican National Committee], perhaps that’s not changing. We just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I’m pissed tonight, frankly. I’m mad.”
After years of contending to stale message of a “rigged election,” Trump’s words and actions will be wholly held account by the House select committee on December 21, however, only time will tell what penalty will be served for his role in organizing a violent insurrection against the United States of America.