CHENEY: CRIMINAL REFERRALS OF TRUMP POSSIBLE
Lawmakers say DOJ should prosecute if evidence warrants
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection could send to the Justice Department multiple criminal referrals of former President Donald Trump over his role in the U.S. Capitol attack, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the committee’s vice chair, said in an interview that aired Sunday.
“The Justice Department doesn’t have to wait for the committee to make a criminal referral,” Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week.” “And there could be more than one criminal referral.”
Cheney emphasized that the committee’s aims were not political, but also that the Justice Department should not refrain from prosecuting Trump out of concerns about political optics if the evidence warrants criminal prosecution.
“I think it’s a much graver constitutional threat if a president can engage in these kinds of activities, and the majority of the president’s party looks away, or we as a country decide we’re not actually going to take our constitutional obligations seriously,” Cheney said.
Cheney went on to express grave concerns about the idea of Trump running as the GOP presidential nominee for a third time.
“I think there’s no question, I mean, a man as dangerous as Donald Trump can absolutely never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again,” Cheney said.
The Republican Party, she said, could not survive if Trump were its 2024 presidential nominee.
The interview was Cheney’s first since the Jan. 6 committee began holding public hearings, and it was taped days after Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, gave bombshell testimony about Trump’s actions — and inaction — on the day of the Capitol attack.
Hutchinson testified last week that Trump knew that some of his supporters were armed but urged them to march on the Capitol anyway, and that he was reportedly indifferent to the mob’s threats to hang Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump and his allies have since sought to discredit Hutchinson, but Cheney said she was “absolutely confident” in the former White House aide’s testimony. Hutchinson also testified last week that Trump was “irate” when he was told he would not be able to travel to the Capitol with his supporters after his speech on the Ellipse, and that she was told Trump lunged at his security detail in anger while inside the presidential limousine.
When asked if the committee had additional evidence to corroborate Hutchinson’s testimony, Cheney said the committee had “significant evidence about a whole range of issues, including the president’s intense anger” inside the presidential limo. Cheney pointedly suggested that anyone who was denying Hutchinson’s version of events testify before the committee under oath as well.
“What Cassidy Hutchinson did was an unbelievable example of bravery and courage and patriotism in the face of real pressure,” Cheney said. “The committee is not going to stand by and watch her character be assassinated by anonymous sources and by men who are claiming executive privilege.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, another member of the Jan. 6 committee, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he agreed with Cheney that there could be multiple criminal referrals made of Trump to the Justice Department and that it would do far more damage to the country if Trump were not investigated out of a concern for further political division.
Schiff warned that if the Justice Department were to take the position that it could not investigate or indict a former president, that would elevate Trump to become someone who is above the law.