The investigation into the storming of the US Capitol is nearing completion. Special attention continues to be paid to Donald Trump. Should the competent committee accuse the ex-president of criminal offenses, that would further heat up the case for the public prosecutor.
For a year and a half, the parliamentary investigative committee investigated the storming of the US Capitol, interviewed more than a thousand witnesses and combed through more than a million documents. Now is the moment of truth: The panel will hold its last public meeting on Monday, when the MPs want to decide against whom they recommend criminal investigations. Of course, it's all about one name: Donald Trump. At a series of public hearings this year, members of the U-Committee made it clear that they see the then President as primarily responsible for the bloody attack on the US Congress on January 6, 2021.
According to the Politico news website, there are allegations of insurrection, obstruction of an official process and the very broad criminal offense of conspiracy to defraud the United States. If the investigative committee calls on the Justice Department to conduct criminal investigations against Trump, that would be a bang – albeit a rather symbolic one. Because the Justice Department is already investigating the 76-year-old Republican, who has already entered the 2024 presidential race.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel against the 76-year-old ex-president in mid-November. Smith explores whether the Republican unlawfully obstructed the transfer of power after the November 2020 presidential election and Congress' certification of Joe Biden's election victory. The special counsel has also taken over the ongoing investigation into the classified documents Trump took with him when he left the White House for his luxury Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Smith has not yet filed charges. If the U-Committee of the House of Representatives formally charges Trump with criminal offenses, the pressure on the special counsel could increase to move towards an indictment.
After his defeat by Biden, Trump launched a veritable campaign to overturn the outcome of the election and stay in the White House. The incumbent raised allegations of electoral fraud without any evidence and declared that he had actually won - although employees made it clear to him early on that there was nothing to his allegations, as the investigative committee showed.
Trump's camp not only filed dozens of ultimately dismissed lawsuits; the right-wing populist also pressured election officials in states like Arizona and Georgia to declare him the victor. When all that failed, he tried to get his Vice President Mike Pence to block Congress’ final certification of Biden’s election victory on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence refused - and Trump sent his supporters who had traveled to Washington on a march to the Capitol and called on them to "fight no matter what".
The ensuing storm in Parliament building, which left five dead and injured 140 police officers, was "the culmination of an attempted coup," Bennie Thompson, chairman of the investigative committee, said at a public hearing in the summer. The panel, which includes seven Democratic congressmen and Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, is now presenting its findings and recommendations in the last few weeks of its existence.
After the hearing on Monday, at which criminal investigations could also be demanded against Trump confidants, the U-Committee will present its final report on Wednesday. Shortly thereafter, the body set up in the summer of 2021 will be history: At the midterms of November 8, Trump's Republicans won a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. That means the end for the committee of inquiry when the new Congress meets on January 3rd.
