Report reveals, Cheney confirms Jan 6 panel split on whether to send criminal referral to AG Garland

Liz Cheney confirmed Sunday the Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack has enough evidence to refer to Attorney General Merrick Garland a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump.

‘It’s absolutely clear that what President Trump was doing, what a number of people around him were doing, that they knew it was unlawful. They did it anyway,’ Cheney said to CNN’s State of the Union host Jake Tapper.

The Wyoming at-large representative is one of two Republicans on the select committee probing the events of January 6 , 2021 – the other is Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. The remaining seven members are all Democrats.

As the nine-member panel plans to issue a final report on its findings, it’s unclear if that will actually include a criminal referral to President Joe Biden’s attorney general.

The shift in referral perspective comes, according to a New York Times report, after a ruling by Judge David O. Carter of the Federal District Court for Central California found it ‘more likely than not’ that Trump and John Eastman, a lawyer who advised on efforts to derail election certification, committed federal crimes.

The panel feels that the judge’s decision would carry more weight with Justice Department head Garland than any referral they would write, people with knowledge of the panel members’ conversations told the Times.

‘We have not made a decision about referrals on the committee,’ Cheney told CNN on Sunday.

‘I think you certainly saw that [what Trump did was unlawful] in the decision that was issued by Judge Carter a few weeks ago, where he concluded that it was more likely than not that the president of the United States was engaged in criminal activity,’ the GOP lawmaker said.

‘I think what we have seen is a massive and well-organized and well-planned effort that used multiple tools to try to overturn an election.’

Members and aides of the January 6 panel who are reluctant to signal support for a criminal referral suggested to the Times that it could create the appearance that AG Garland was investigating Trump for political reasons at the behest of Democrats in Congress rather than for legitimate reasons.

Some members and aides are concerned that signaling support for a criminal referral could create the appearance that AG Garland was investigating Trump for political reasons at the behest of Democrats in Congress

Lawmakers on the panel want to avoid any perceptions that a DOJ probe could be connected to Democratic vendettas against the former president for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

If the final report does not explicitly refer a criminal investigation to Garland, the findings will still be valuable to federal prosecutors regarding evidence, some of which has not been made public, uncovered by the committee.

Some people claim this could serve as a road map for prosecution – even without a referral.

When asked about arguments on the panel over whether to refer a criminal probe to Garland, Cheney said: ‘There’s not really a dispute on the committee.’

‘The committee is working in a really collaborative way to discuss these issues, as we are with all of the issues we’re addressing,’ she assured. ‘And we will continue to work together to do so. So, I wouldn’t characterize there as being a dispute on the committee. I think that it is the single most collaborative committee on which I have ever served. I’m very proud of the bipartisan way in which we’re operating.’

The lawmaker, who was censured by the Republican Party in her home state of Wyoming, said that there is ‘clearly’ evidence that demonstrates ‘the objective was absolutely to try to stop the count of electoral votes, to try to interfere with that official proceeding.

‘And it’s absolutely clear that they knew what they were doing was wrong, they knew that it was unlawful, and they did it anyway,’ she added.