ATLANTA — The U.S. House January 6 select committee wants the U.S. Justice Department to explore criminal charges against former President Donald Trump.
Some of those could overlap with a Fulton County investigation into the former president.
The January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol came weeks after Donald Trump first refused to recognize the legal election of Joe Biden in 2020. With that came the harassment afterward of Georgia election workers like Ruby Freeman of Fulton County. The committee replayed some of her testimony Monday.
"I get nervous when I have to give my name for food orders. I’m always concerned with who’s around me. I lost my name and lost my reputation," Freeman told the committee in recorded testimony earlier this year.
"The treatment of Ms. Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss and so many others around the country was callous, inhuman, inexcusable and dangerous. And those responsible should be held accountable," Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) said Monday.
The committee adopted a report saying the former president was at the center of an effort to fraudulently change the election, and to obstruct the legal transfer of power. Both are criminal acts, according to the committee.
"The most dramatic example of this campaign of coercion was the president’s January 2, 2021 call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger when the president urged the secretary to find 11,780 votes in order to change the outcome in that state," Schiff said.
That’s the phone call that’s central to the Fulton County special grand jury investigation. Fulton could use the committee’s evidence to advance evidence of a conspiracy behind the phone call.
Key Trump insiders have spoken privately to Fulton grand jurors, including Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn and Cassidy Hutchinson.
The grand jury is due to make recommendations to Fulton prosecutors. District Attorney Fani Willis will decide if those recommendations should be presented to another grand jury to return possible criminal indictments.
Though the committee report is clearly intended for federal prosecutors, its report and the testimony are public. If Fulton prosecutors want to use the material, it's available for their use.