Jan. 6 Committee concludes Trump engaged in ‘criminal conspiracy’ to defraud the US
In a court filing, the bipartisan committee headed by Rep. Bennie Thompson argued that its evidence shows that Trump violated multiple laws.
Former President Donald Trump and his campaign staff engaged in criminal activity in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the Jan. 6 Select Committee in the U.S. House concluded in court documents filed on Wednesday.
The Select Committee, headed by U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, told the United States District Court in the Central District of California that it has “good-faith basis for concluding that [then-President Trump] and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.”
In the court filing, lawyers representing the bipartisan committee argued that its evidence shows that Trump violated multiple laws, including conspiracy and defrauding the United States, obstructing an official proceeding, and common law fraud.
The evidence presented by the Jan. 6 committee could lay the groundwork for the U.S. Department of Justice to potentially indict Trump or his campaign team by the time the committee concludes its investigation. The U.S. House select committee was formed in July 2021.
“Donald Trump must be held accountable for any violations of law he may have committed in his effort to steal and overturn the 2020 presidential election,” U.S. Congressman and Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries told theGrio. ”It appears he was a one-man crime wave during his time in office. This is America, not Russia. No one is above the law.”
After then-candidate Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential contest in November 2020, then-President Trump and his lawyers filed over 60 lawsuits in multiple states where he had lost to Biden, contesting the results of the vote counts and falsely claiming the existence of voter fraud. Nearly every lawsuit was dismissed by judges, including those appointed by Trump himself.
On Jan. 6, Trump held a rally at the National Mall before tens of thousands of his supporters and urged them to “fight like hell” and that he would “never concede” the race. The then-president told the crowd, “you’re not going to have a country anymore” if they did not do whatever it took to “save” the country.
TheGrio’s April Ryan previously interviewed Committee Chairman Thompson, who said he saw his job as chairman as a mission to “reinstall Democracy” in the United States.
“A Black man from one of the most racist states, as it relates to voting rights for people of color, is now having to defend democracy in the greatest Democracy known to man – it’s kind of ironic,” said Thompson.
This story is breaking news and is still developing.
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