January 6 committee votes to recommend criminal contempt charges for 2 former Trump

CNN
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Members of the House select committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol voiced their frustration with Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice on Monday, as they voted unanimously to recommend two former advisers to former President Donald Trump be referred to the department on criminal contempt of Congress charges.

The message to Garland and DOJ, which has still not said whether it will pursue criminal charges against former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows for defying a congressional subpoena, was clear: Do your job.

“This committee is doing its job. The Department of Justice needs to do theirs,” committee member Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, said during Monday’s business meeting. The panel voted to recommend Trump White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and Trump’s onetime trade adviser, Peter Navarro, for criminal contempt charges for their refusal to cooperate with the committee’s investigation or appear for a scheduled deposition.

Virginia Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria said that “the Department of Justice must act swiftly,” adding, “I will echo what my colleagues have already said, but more bluntly: Attorney General Garland, do your job – so that we can do ours.”

That message to DOJ was only amplified by committee Chair Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, casting the committee’s probe as a struggle for the future of democracy. Referencing the ongoing invasion of Ukraine in her opening remarks, Cheney warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions remind “us what happens when authoritarians rule.”

The panel’s vote Monday night on Scavino and Navarro came after the committee filed reports Sunday night outlining the ways in which both men evaded investigators. The referrals head next to the full House for a vote, where House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has committed to bringing them forward “as soon as the schedule permits.”

If both pass out of the House, the referrals would then be sent to the Department of Justice, which will decide if there is enough evidence to prosecute. The committee has advanced three previous criminal referrals.

Cheney at the meeting drew a direct parallel between the panel’s work to hold Trump accountable and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – casting the House investigation as essential to the future of democracy and setting the stage for her fellow committee members to make their message to DOJ even more clear and urgent.

“The Department of Justice has a duty to act on this referral and others we have sent,” Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California said. “Without enforcement of congressional subpoenas, there is no oversight. And without oversight, no accountability, not for the former President or any other president, past, present or future.”

Both Cheney and Thompson linked the referral recommendation to Monday’s ruling by a federal judge that Trump and conservative lawyer John Eastman may have been planning a crime as they sought to disrupt the January 6, 2021, congressional certification of the presidential election.

The panel claims it granted Scavino six extensions of his deadline to sit for an interview and hand over documents and noted that several of the issues Navarro said he could not discuss he had previously written about in his book.

The first referral from the House, for former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, was picked up by DOJ and has led to an indictment of Bannon. He faces a criminal trial this summer.

The Justice Department is still reviewing the contempt referral of Meadows, which the full House voted on in December. Scavino was initially subpoenaed at the same time as Bannon and Meadows.

A third contempt referral, for former DOJ staffer Jeffrey Clark, was voted out of committee but did not make it to the House floor after Clark agreed to meet with the committee. Clark sat for an interview but pleaded the 5th Amendment more than 100 times.

Scavino used a series of delay tactics to prevent any type of substantive cooperation with its investigation, according to the committee, which argues he never substantively engaged and therefore was in violation of his subpoena. Scavino is one of Trump’s closest and most loyal allies, having served in the administration from beginning to end and as one of his earliest campaign staffers.

He was intimately involved with Trump’s social media channels, often posting message to Trump’s followers on the then-President’s behalf. The committee believes Scavino is privy to meetings and details of the events leading up to and on January 6, including strategy sessions…