Born out of ash heap of the Feb. 13, 2021 acquittal in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of 76-year-old former President Donald Trump, the Jan. 6 House Select Committee did a redo of what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could not get done. Trump was impeached Jan 11, 2021 for “incitement of insurrection,” only to watch nine House impeachment managers led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) foiled Feb. 13, 2021 in the U.S. Senate. Raskin couldn’t make his case against Trump in the U.S. Senate, deciding instead to retry the case against in a highly biased, anti-Trump committee, joined by Republicans Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) and Rep. Adam Kissinger (R-Ill.) both retiring from the House Jan. 1, 2023. Democrats’ Jan. 6 House Select Committee cherry picked all their witnesses and testimony to file criminal charges against Trump today with the Department of Justice.
No one, other than the most partisan Democrats and Trump-hating Republicans, can take the findings revealed today of the House Select Committee seriously. Cheney and Kinzinger has been saying for months that Trump planned and orchestrated the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. House Select Committee went to great pains to charge Trump with a whole litany of federal crimes announced today. Charging Trump with (a) obstruction of an Official Proceeding, (b) Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, (c) Conspiracy to Make a False Statement and (d)“Incite,” “Assist,” or Aid and Comfort” an insurrection. House Select Committee members passed the criminal referral against Trump to the DOJ, who’s already looking at criminal charges against Trump for mishandling classified information found at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans want to prevent Trump from running for president in 2024.
Boasting about all the witnesses and testimony, the House Select Committee made their criminal referrals against Trump to the DOJ, knowing Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland is under no obligation to follow through. Garland already appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith Nov. 18 to decide whether to file any charges against Trump. Most nonpartisan legal experts don’t think the government has much of a case against Trump for anything, including the classified dos. When it comes to the Jan. 6 House Select Committee there’s so much bias and cherry picking of witnesses and testimony no legal proceeding following any rules of evidence could take it seriously. Take 36-year-old Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony, for instance, she offered the Select Committee an eyewitness bombshell of Trump when she wasn’t an eyewitness at all, just spewing hearsay to the Committee.
Numerous other witnesses and testimony were taken by the Committee to implicate Trump in a monstrous conspiracy to topple the U.S. government on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump was accused on Jan. 6 of inciting an angry mob to vandalize the Capitol to stop the Electoral College voter certification. Once Trump was acquitted in the U.S. Senate of “incitement of insurrection,” the House Select Committee was born six months later to put Trump in double-jeopardy, expressly forbidden in the U.S. Constitution. But Pelosi went full steam ahead vowing she would stop Trump from running in 2024. What better way to stop Trump than to charge him with criminal felonies. Committee members want House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Az.), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Penn.) charged with obstructing Congress for not responding to subpoenas.
House Jan. 6 Select Committee Co-Chairman Bernie Thomson (D-Miss.) said the Committee was all about “accountability. “ “Accountability that can only be found in the criminal justice system,” Thomson said. “We have every confidence that the work of this Committee will help provide a roadmap to justice, and that the agencies and institutions responsible for assuring justice under the law will use the information we’ve provided to aid their work . . “Thomson said. Thomson knows that the highly partisan and biased nature of the Committee makes any conclusions or findings incredulous. What kind of a balanced quasi-judicial process cherry picks evidence to throw the book at the former president? Thomson and Cheney collected nothing that proved that Trump planned and orchestrated the events of Jan. 6. All they can say is that the riots were planned for months by murky criminal groups.
All the anti-Trump networks covered the Committee’s final report, hoping that they had the goods to charge the former president. But if the U.S. Senate acquitted Trump Feb. 13, 2021 of “incitement of insurrection,” how can the Committee insist he’s guilty of the same crimes for which he was committed? Trump tweeted on Truth Social that the “Unselect Committer of political hackd” is a “witch hunt.” Sending the Committee’s criminal referral to the DOJ means very little, especially with Special Counsel Jack Smith trying to figure things out. Members of the Jan. 6 House Select Committee are all convinced Trump committed another round of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” only this time around he’s not president. As a private citizen Trump’s entitled like everyone else to “due process” and “equal protection under the law.” When it comes to Committee, they expect the DOJ to “take their word for it”
About the Author.
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
