Oath Keepers' conviction affirms my belief it all leads to Trump: J6 committee member

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke to reporters on Wednesday as Congress continued the lame-duck session ahead of the holiday break.

When asked about the guilty sedition conviction, Raskin explained that it confirmed his faith in justice.

"I'm thrilled that justice was done. I was impressed that the jury obviously made a fine-grained and subtle distinction for different defendants and different charges. So there were multiple convictions and multiple acquittals and it means the justice system is working and we can sort it out," Raskin explained.

That said, he explained that "an insurrection or a coup is made up of sub-atomic crimes and I cheer whenever those sub-atomic crimes are prosecuted and convicted. It has not changed my views on [whether it points to the White House]. It deepens my sense that Donald Trump was the central actor and mastermind of all of these events and they generated crimes of a terrible danger."

When asked about the special counsel, he said that he understands why Attorney General Merrick Garland would make such a move, saying, "The apologists for the insurrection would be wandering around asking 'why didn't you appoint a special counsel? You can't trust an attorney general who was named by the president.' But when they appointed the special counsel, Donald Trump said, this is the biggest witch hunt of all time."

Raskin is part of the subcommittee made up of lawyers on the House Select Committee investigating Jan. 6, so a piece of what they're doing is mapping out any possible referrals to the Justice Department.

"Look there have been hundreds of offenses committed that are subsumed under the general banner of Jan. 6 and we just want to make sure nothing falls through the cracks. And we want to make sure that the Committee is emphatic about those crimes that are of sufficient gravity that one branch of government essentially needs to tell another about it."

There are at least four people Raskin said the committee has already referred to the Justice Department for criminal charges for contempt of Congress. So, it's unclear who the committee will refer for further charges. From the sound of it, Raskin is ready to hang that albatross around the former president.

"I think that what Donald Trump did when he occupied the Oval Office was the most dangerous set of political assaults on American political institutions in the history of the White House," Raskin also said. "I don’t think any other president has come as close as Trump in terms of the dangerousness of his actions, in terms of destabilizing and potentially overthrowing the constitutional order."