Representative Jamie Raskin has teased new evidence that the select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot has against former president Donald Trump
Mr Raskin, a member of the select committee, made the remarks during a Q&A session with The Washington Post on Monday ahead of the panel’s first prime time hearings that begin on Thursday.
The Maryland Democrat said that even though two-thirds of the Senate did not vote to convict the former president, a majority in the House and Senate voted to do so for inciting the riot.
“But the Select Committee has found evidence about a lot more than incitement here, and we are going to be laying out the evidence about all of the actors who were pivotal to what took place on January 6th,” he said. Mr Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, served as the lead impeachment manager.
When asked by The Washington Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell whether any of the evidence would compel the Department of Justice to act, he said it was important to look at the ruling by Judge David Carter, who serves on the United States District Court for the Central District of California, in March.
Mr Carter ruled that former Trump attorney John C Eastman must turn over emails that he attempted to withhold and also wrote that Mr Trump tried to obstruct a Congressional proceeding, which is a felony.
“Together, these actions more likely than not constitute attempts to obstruct an official proceeding,” he said.
Mr Raskin said there were key differences between what the Justice Department was doing versus the select committee’s actions.
“You know, we, of course, are a legislative investigative committee charged with giving a report to the Congress and to the people of the United States, because in a democracy, the people have the right to know the truth about our government and about everything that affects it and what's going on,” he said.
By comparison, he said that the Justice Department is collecting evidence of crimes, and that there have been multiple guilty pleas related to the insurrection.
“So we think that there is overwhelming evidence of this plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election in coordination with a violent assault on our body,” he said. “So we're going to lay it all out there, but the prosecutors are going to have to sort it out with respect to individual defendants. And speaking just as one member of the committee, I have confidence in the ability of the Department of Justice to do their job.”
