Jan 6 Final Hearing

As expected, the Committee has made criminal referrals to the DOJ in its final hearing on the January 6 capitol attack.

The referrals, unlike the committee’s contempt of Congress recommendations, do not need the approval of the full House. Like the contempt referrals, they cannot force prosecutors to charge or even start an investigation against anyone. Publicly known subpoenas and witness appearances, though, suggest that Trump and anyone else likely to be referred by the committee are already under active criminal investigation.

[...]

The committee’s last act is likely to be the release of its final report this week, possibly on Wednesday. It plans to release an executive summary of the report Monday, following the hearing.

   MSN

Four criminal referral counts against "Trump and others."

The House Jan. 6 committee has decided to recommend the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, including obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiring to make false statements, and insurrection.

  MSNBC

A live-blog report is at that MSNBC link.

The Committee also made referrals to the House Ethics Committee of Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs, and Kevin McCarthy for refusing to comply with subpoenas. I don't think there's enough time for that committee to do anything, however, as the Republicans take over the House on January 3, and I expect them to dismiss the referrals.

John Eastman, Trump's skeezy lawyer, was criminally referred to the DOJ for obstruction of an official government proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States. I don't know yet, but I think Jeffrey Clark may be referred for some of the crimes as well. The hearing did not give names other than Trump. They merely said, "and others."

The new evidence offered in this last hearing consisted of a couple of clips of Trump adviser Hope Hicks testifying before the committee. Her testimony came after the last hearing in October (seems like so much longer ago), as I'm sure she decided it was time to come clean before ending up in the grinder herself. She - or at least her attorneys - can read handwriting on the wall. All they showed us, however, was that she claims she tried to convince Trump before January 6 to put out word the people coming to the capitol should remain peaceful. At least she said she told then-Trump attorney Eric Herschmann, and he said he'd already tried and Trump refused.

Live updates as the hearing was happening can also be read here at NBC News. 

The 154-page (includes 50 pages of footnotes) executive summary was out ahead of the hearing.

The one thing I feel fairly certain about is action by the DOJ on the count of inciting or assisting an insurrection, since they've already tried and convicted people on the charge of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government and of obstructing an official proceeding, and Trump very obviously incited AND assisted (if only by refusing to do anything about it).  And, incidentally, that is the provision of the Constitution that prevents someone from holding office if found guilty.

That's what makes me think it's the one charge the DOJ will take up, assuming people would be willing to prevent him from holding office even if they're not willing to send him to jail.  I don't think this country is ready (or maybe ever will be) to send a president to jail.  That would be like admitting we're no better than a third world country.  And, by God, we're THE USA!

Kind of cool that the room in which they held the hearing was recently renamed...

I wonder if the asshole Republicans will try to change that when they take over the House in January.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  And so begins the riling up of "his" people again.