Donald Trump reacts sharply to Jan. 6 panel's suggestion of 4 criminal charges against him

The House of Select Committee which is investigating the January 6 Capitol riots, that took place in the United States Capitol Hill, met for the last time on Monday. In the Monday session, the Jan. 6 panel approved the criminal referrals against former US President Donald Trump for his role in instigating the deadly mob at the Capitol and attempting to overturn the 2020 US Presidential election result. The Jan. 6 panel voted to recommend the case to the US Department of Justice to pursue criminal charges against the twice disgraced the former US President. The Businessman-turned-politician has not only become the first US President to be impeached twice from office, but he also became the first President in American history to be formally referred by congress for persuasion of criminal charges.

The Jan.6 panel recommended a total of four criminal charges against the former US President and his allies. Other than the charges of inciting the Capitol riots, the other charges included, “obstruction of official proceedings, conspiracy to defraud the United States government and making false statements to the US government”. According to NBC News, the Jan 6. panel’s final meeting came after 17 month-long congressional investigations, which included around 100 subpoenas, interviews of more than 1,200 witnesses, and the collection of several crucial documents. The committee also held the allies of the former US President responsible for attempting to block the certification of the victory of current US President Joe Biden. Following the verdict by the committee, former US President Donald Trump lashed out at the congressional committee and called the charges “fake”. 

Donald Trump attacks the committee: What lies ahead?

Responding to the recent verdict, the former US President lashed out at the January 6 Committee and claimed that all charges are “fake”. Trump took to his social media networking site, Truth Social to put forward his case. Following the verdict, he wrote, “The Fake charges made by the highly partisan Unselect Committee of January 6th have already been submitted, prosecuted, and tried in the form of Impeachment Hoax #2”. Singing the same old tunes, the former US President said, “I WON convincingly”. Trump then went on to draw parallels between his impeachment proceeding and the Monday verdict as he further wrote: “This whole business of prosecuting me is just like impeachment was -- a partisan attempt to sideline me and the Republican Party”.

Explaining the reason behind the verdict, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md) who led the Jan 6. panel, stated, “We understand the gravity of each and every referral we are making today, just as we understand the magnitude of the crime against democracy that we describe in our report”. “But we have gone where the facts and the law lead us, and inescapably they lead us here,” he added. According to The Guardian, the full report of the finding by the January 6 committee will be made public on Wednesday. This will include all the documentation and committee interviews of the witness of the Capitol Hill riots. However, the committee will dissolve, with four members not even returning to Congress, since they chose to not run for re-election in the US mid-terms. Now that Trump’s case is being referred to the Department of Justice, it will be interesting to see how this new development will impact the current ongoing criminal investigations into Trump’s handling of top-secret government documents. Only time will tell, how the new developments will affect Trump’s Presidential campaign for the 2024 US Presidential elections.