The slow and arduous show trial that has been the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack has finally issued its last gasp this week.
With democracy under constant assault hour by hour, the committee wasted no time for the last 18 months in trying to prosecute former President Donald Trump and his associates for a riot at the Capitol Building that took place almost two years ago. Time is of the essence, the situation is dire, which is why the committee didn’t want to get bogged down in holding primetime public affairs laden with disputable evidence and hear-say testimony.
Now that time is no longer on its side, however, the J6 Committee is going out with a whimper by symbolically voting to refer Trump to the Department of Justice for Criminal prosecution:
The Jan. 6 select House committee in a unanimous vote Monday referred former President Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation and potential prosecution for his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.
The committee’s historic referral says there is sufficient evidence to refer Trump for four crimes: obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government, making knowingly and willfully materially false statements to the federal government, and inciting or assisting an insurrection.
“We propose to the committee advancing referrals where the gravity of the specific offense, the severity of its actual harm, and the centrality of the offender to the overall design of the unlawful scheme to overthrow the election, compel us to speak,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., as he addressed his fellow panel members.
“Ours is not a system of justice where foot soldiers go to jail and the masterminds and ringleaders get a free pass,” Raskin said.
While the Justice Department, which is already conducting an investigation of Trump, takes criminal referrals seriously, it is not obligated to charge anyone with a crime.
That fact that seven Democrats joined two moderate RINO Republicans in a “unanimous” vote demonstrates how lopsided and unfair this entire committee has been from the start. Rather than allow testimony or witnesses that might rebut or offer a different recount of events, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was determined to create a show trial with only one goal in mind: embarrassing and harassing the former President for as long as possible.
The timing of the referral is suspect as well since it’s basically the last line of attack against Trump this committee has left before it’s disbanded in January when Republicans take over the House. Had it not been for the 2022 midterm results, this committee could’ve conceivably gone on in perpetuity. Day after day, while democracy sits under attack, Liz Cheney kept collecting her extra salary for a posh committee assignment and constant media attention.
The other part of this story is that for the vast majority of Americans, this is barely a news headline anymore. Of course, the major media and nightly news broadcasts covered it since they’re prone to cover any anti-Trump news they can find. For most people, however, this was an issue that was settled long ago. It’s almost not even worth reporting on but for the fact that the committee voted to do something rather than keep holding hearings and producing eye-glazingly boring primetime television.
Some pieces of evidence never seemed to make it into the record at any committee hearing such as this video of Trump calling for a “peaceful” and “patriotic” protest on Capitol Hill:
For the record President Donald J. Trump never called for any violence to take place on J6 —in fact just the opposite. This is the video that the fake media and the J6 joke committee refuses to show because it destroys their narrative. #January6thCommittee pic.twitter.com/7pJF2Cgbp5
— Righteous??Crusader (@Craftmastah) December 19, 2022
Never mind the evidence, though, the agenda is sacred.
