A federal investigation into former President Donald Trump appeared to enter a new phase this month, according to reporting Tuesday that the U.S. House panel probing the January 6 attack on the Capitol is "extensively cooperating" with Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed to lead Trump investigations.
Punchbowl News reported that the bipartisan House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol has begun sending Smith's team documents and transcripts related to a scheme by Trump's allies to create slates of "fake electors" who supported the Republican in states that were actually won by Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
The committee started turning over the documents last week, after months of declining to share investigative materials with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the news outlet noted.
⚡️ New: The Jan. 6 select committee is already turning over materials to the Justice Dept. following a request from special counsel Jack Smith. Much of the material has focused on former WHCOS Mark Meadows & Trump lawyer John Eastman https://t.co/waHBhK75P9
— John Bresnahan (@bresreports) December 20, 2022
After Trump's 2024 presidential campaign announcement last month, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to oversee the DOJ investigations into Trump's involvement in the January 6 attack—in which thousands of his supporters breached the Capitol building in an attempt to stop the certification of the election—and the former president's retention of highly classified documents after he left office.
The news that the committee is cooperating with Smith's investigation into the 2021 Capitol attack comes a day after the panel voted to refer Trump to the DOJ for criminal prosecution on four charges and his former lawyer, John Eastman, on two charges.
The committee published an executive summary on Monday but is expected to release its final report on its 18-month investigation on Wednesday.
