The Chairman of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection announced Tuesday that it would meet publicly one final time on Monday, December 19 at 1pm Eastern Time.
Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said the members would vote on criminal referrals and on approval of their report on Monday. The Committee’s final report will come two days later, on Wednesday, December 21.
Over the weekend, the Committee members met to discuss criminal referrals. According to reports, former President Trump could be among those the panel includes in its criminal referrals for his role in the plot to overturn the 2020 Presidential election, as could former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, right wing lawyer John Eastman, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Chairman Thompson told reporters on Tuesday that there would be five or six different categories of referrals. Some may go to the Justice Department and others to the House Ethics Committee, for example. And when reporters asked whether some referrals may go to state bar associations, Chairman Thompson did not dismiss that suggestion.
On Sunday, Committee member Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) conceded that the referrals could be largely symbolic in nature.
“I don’t think criminal referrals are pointless,” he said, adding, “The criminal referrals themselves aren’t necessarily something that is going to wake DOJ up to something they didn’t know before, but I do think it will be an important, symbolic thing that the Committee can do. Even more than symbolic. Just very clear that Congress thinks, you know, a crime has been committed here or the DOJ should investigate it.”
