WASHINGTON – Lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection said Sunday they can provide evidence that Donald Trump tried to overthrow his election loss to Joe Biden even though he knew he had lost – a key legal point if he is prosecuted over actions that led directly to the violence at the U.S. Capitol.
Future hearings, including one on Monday, will demonstrate how a succession of advisers also told Trump that his claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election were bogus, Jan. 6 committee members said during a string of Sunday show appearances.
“I think any reasonable person in America will tell you, he had to have known he was spreading a ‘Big Lie,'” said Rep, Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the Jan. 6 select committee, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Raskin added: “He continues to spread it to this very day.”
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Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told ABC’s “This Week” that the Department of Justice should investigate Trump and some of his allies.
“Once the evidence is accumulated by the Justice Department, it needs to make a decision about whether it can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt the president’s guilt or anyone else’s,” he said.
“But they need to be investigated if there’s credible evidence, which I think there is.”
Trump’s apparent self-knowledge that he was spreading a lie “tells you a lot about the president’s responsibility,” he said.
Schiff also said that future hearings will show “connections” between people in Trump’s orbit and white nationalist groups that participated in the attacks. He did not provide details, saying, “I don’t want to get into specifics of the evidence, you’ll just have to wait until we get to that point of our hearings.”
Trump’s motives and actual knowledge about his claims would be a key legal issue if prosecutors decide to pursue a criminal case against Trump. Raskin and other committee members have said they have not decided whether to make a formal criminal referral of Trump to the Justice Department.
Trump and allies insist that fraud took place, and accused the committee of pursuing a political vendetta.
Committee takeaways: A ‘sophisticated’ 7-part plan. ‘Slipping in people’s blood’: Takeaways from prime-time Jan. 6 hearing
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., one of two Republicans on the committee, said Trump knowingly “spread misinformation” and pressured numerous officials to do his bidding, from local election officials to Vice President Mike Pence.
“This was all about keeping power, against the will of the American people,” Kinzinger said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
While declining to say whether Trump should be indicted, committee members also suggested that the Justice Department attorneys are already on the case. In addition, a grand jury in Atlanta is investigating the pressure Trump put on Georgia election officials to change the election.
In his CNN appearance, Raskin joked that Attorney General Merrick Garland lives in his district, and that he would never “browbeat” a constituent.
“I think that he knows, his staff knows, the U.S. attorneys know, what’s at stake here,” Raskin said. “They know the importance of it. But I think they are rightfully paying close attention to precedent in history as well as the facts of this case.”
When to watch: Jan. 6 committee hearing schedule: Here’s what we know about the upcoming Jan. 6 hearings
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: January 6 panel member Raskin: Trump had to know he spread ‘Big Lie’
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