Jan. 6 panel sees Trump indictment as building on its probe

Members of the Jan. 6 select committee suggested Tuesday that the indictment of former President Trump on charges connected to his efforts to remain in power following the 2020 election built on their investigation into the Capitol riot. 

In statements and remarks reacting to the news, members of the Jan. 6 committee cited work from their probe, which spanned roughly a year-and-a-half and included a series of high-profile hearings where the panel presented its findings.

The probe culminated with the committee voting for four criminal referrals against Trump, recommending that the Justice Department (DOJ) investigate him for inciting an insurrection; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and obstruction of an official proceeding.

Thursday’s indictment from special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump with two crimes recommended by the committee — conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

But it did not follow the committee’s recommendation to pursue rarely used Insurrection Act charges — instead bringing charges under conspiracy against rights, a law protecting the right to vote. 

And while it also did not bring charges for conspiracy to make a false statement, the indictment outlines a litany of false claims by Trump that the DOJ said formed a basis of his efforts to remain in power.

Members of the select committee were quick to draw a link between their investigation and the DOJ’s indictment shortly after the charges were filed on Tuesday.

“I’ve just had a chance to skim the indictment, I want to read it in detail, but it sure looks like the facts recited follow what the Jan. 6 committee was able to unveil to the public,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the select committee, told CNN in an interview. “As you know, we thought those actions were criminal in nature and apparently, upon our referral, the Department of Justice did as well.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), another member of the panel, said the charges brought against Trump were “based in large part on evidence we uncovered through our work on the January 6th Committee.”

“These charges — based in large part on evidence we uncovered through our work on the January 6th Committee — and the trial that will follow, will put our democracy to a new test: can the rule of law be enforced against a former president and current candidate for president? For the sake of our democracy, we must hope that the answer is yes,” he wrote in a statement.

The Jan. 6 select committee wrapped up its work in December, publishing a final report and releasing transcripts of closed-door depositions it conducted with scores of witnesses. The panel dissolved when Republicans took control of the House at the beginning of the 118th Congress.

Before the official party handover, however, panel Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and the-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the ranking member of the select committee, announced that the panel had “made an enormous volume of material available to the Special Counsel.”

Thompson made note of that transfer of information Tuesday.

“[A]t the end of its investigation, the bipartisan January 6th Select Committee turned over to the Justice Department its evidence of an extensive plot by the ex-President to overturn the Presidential election on January 6th and prevent the peaceful transfer of power,” Thompson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Numerous details and recounting of events included in the indictment mirror testimony given to the panel and shown during its hearings last year.

Thompson claimed that the charges filed against Trump on Tuesday were “consistent” with the select committee’s referrals.

“Today’s charges are consistent with those the Select Committee referred to the Special Counsel last year, and successful prosecutions will not only bring accountability but also help prevent something like January 6th from ever happening again,” Thompson wrote in a tweet.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) echoed that sentiment, telling CBS News in an interview that the indictment is “quite parallel to what the committee found.”

Raskin — a former constitutional law professor — noted that Smith’s office did not charge Trump with incitement of insurrection, which the panel included in its referrals, noting that he was unsure why it was not included in the indictment. But he said the rest of the charging document jives with the panel’s recommendations.

“Of course, we don’t know why either the grand jury decided not to vote a charge there, or Jack Smith decided not to bring that charge before the grand jury. It is a statute that has not been used very much, and it’s one that has not been constitutionally tested in the Supreme Court so maybe they decided there is such a super abundance of other criminal violations that are evident that there was no reason to go to that one,” Raskin said.

“But otherwise they found pretty much as we found, this was an attempt to overthrow the election result, to usurp the voting rights of the people, to interfere with a federal proceeding and to establish a counterfeit electoral process to supplant the actual one that exists under the Constitution and under federal and state law,” he continued.

He called the indictment “a vindication of the rule of law.”

“So I feel very pleased that this is such a vindication of the rule of law in America, and that this grand jury saw what the Jan. 6 committee saw when we tried to analyze the chaos and the violence that had been unleashed against America, not just on Jan. 6, but in the weeks leading up to it,” Raskin said.

Rebecca Beitsch contributed.