US lawmakers call for criminal charges against Trump - Congress has never made a criminal referral against a sitting or former president, and it will add to the clamour among Trump's opponents for prosecution
Lawmakers investigating last year’s assault on the US Capitol recommended on Monday that Donald Trump be charged with multiple offences including insurrection — raising the stakes in a parallel criminal investigation that could put the former president in jail.
The bipartisan committee voted unanimously to refer the charges to the justice department after opening remarks by vice-chair Liz Cheney in which she accused Trump of “a clear dereliction of duty” in failing to immediately attempt to stop the riot and called him “unfit for any office”. Jack Smith, a largely independent special prosecutor appointed by the attorney general, Merrick Garland, is leading his own investigation into Trump related to the 2020 election.Trump issued a statement claiming that the purpose of the investigation was to “keep me from running for president because they know I’ll win” and that any prosecution would be “a partisan attempt to sideline me”.
It is also a major blow to Trump amid a series of missteps in the weeks since he announced a comeback bid for the White House — including the Republicans’ poor midterm election showing in states where the tycoon endorsed candidates. “That faith in our system is the foundation of American democracy. If the faith is broken, so is our democracy. Donald Trump broke that faith.”
He is accused of trying to corrupt the justice department and of putting pressure on his vice-president, Mike Pence, as well as state election officials and legislators, to overturn the vote by violating the Constitution and the law.
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