The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the election met on Sunday to discuss whether they would do criminal referrals to the Justice Department. But according to one legal expert, the GOP will basically force them to make at least one referral.
Law school professor and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade explained that if the Jan. 6 committee doesn't make a referral, they will use it as justification that there's no one to blame for the evidence uncovered. It happened before when special prosecutor Robert Mueller didn't indict Donald Trump for anything involving the Russia probe. Mueller never intended to, making it clear that as he understood it, there wasn't an option to indict the sitting president under the DOJ policy at the time. Trump spent the years that followed proclaiming he was exonerated, which he wasn't, Mueller said under oath to the House Judiciary Committee.
"I think the referrals are important. As we just heard, DOJ is going to decide what it wants to do with or without referrals. Typically referrals are a value when they report something that the Justice Department was previously unaware of," said McQuade. "The Justice Department is most certainly aware of what happened on Jan. 6th, and on the testimony that has been shown today. But, there is also a lot of material that had never been shown publicly. The Justice Department is very keen to get its hands on all of those transcripts. I think the referrals would bring with them all of that material that could be very helpful. I also think, Alicia, it is important to provide those referrals as part of the public narrative and for the historical record. This is what they found here, evidence of criminal behavior. I think if they were to not make these referrals, it would give the opponents the opportunity to point to that fact and say, see? The Jan. 6th committee didn't even find any criminals!"
Jan. 6 committee members have been largely quiet on what they think they'll decide, but Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said that he believes Trump should be at least one of them.
See the exchange below or at the link here: