for them than for this committee. right, exactly. there was a big difference between political what they think and obviously a doj and interesting that the committee had two other charges, seditious conspiracy which we know doj has used in other cases and conspiracy to impede a federal officer. they re saying, look, we don t have all the tools doj does, jennifer, but we think doj should look into these charges a little bit more for donald trump. what do you make of that? well, i think that s the right thing to do, pam. i ve been impressed all along with the committee s work but the restraint that they ve shown i think with these referrals is also really impressive. they could have said you should charge seditious conspiracy. the problem with that, it requires the use or intended use of force to overthrow the government and while they were able to make that case out with the oath keepers and the proud boys, potentially that trial supcoming they haven t at least as far as what s been
massive spending bill and now it s a race to get that legislation passed and to the president s desk. up first the january 6th committee sends the justice department four criminal referrals against donald trump and now the big question today, will the doj actually charge the former president? the committee released an executive summary of its findings saying, quote, evidence has led to an overriding and straightforward conclusion. the central cause of january 6th was one man, former president donald trump, who many others followed. it s a statement echoed by committee members during their final public meeting. every president in our history has defended this orderly transfer of authority except one. he lost the 2020 election and knew it. but he chose to try to stay in office through a multi-part scheme to overturn the results and block the transfer of power. in the end, he summoned a mob to
know, maybe fore knowledge but not the kind of evidence that he knew there was going to be force used, at least as far as what we ve seen so i think they were very smart not to say you re across the finish line for that but, of course, as evan said doj has a lot more tools talking to people now the committee couldn t talk to because they either refused or threw up privileges that have now been set asite by judge howell so doj will get more and the committee s just saying, listen, if you get more that establishes this force element, you should charge it. you re getting reporting, palm la about how trump world views this, of course, they re trying to portray the committee as partisan never trumpers really focusing on what evidence they view is exculpatory for the former president not soing that in the hearings. they think it s an uphill battle. exactly to bring a case against the former president. look, even if you do this we believe we can successfully put on a defense. that s not s
seen doj bring against some of the rioters but not insurrection. does doj view that charge as something with overwhelming evidence? i don t think they do and i think it s something that certainly they looked at when they started doing the investigation after the attack on the capitol. they ve looked at it with some of the people who have been who have faced charges and ended up going away from that in part because there s very little case law. it s a statute that dates back to the civil war era and it is not something that prosecutors felt that they could sustain. they ended up choosing to go with seditious conspiracy against some of the oath keepers, some of the proud boy members are also facing some of those charges, so that s what they ended up doing and i think that s probably one of the difficult things for doj. they want to make sure obviously that, you know, any charge that they bring is something that they can sustain not only before a jury but also on appeal and so that s