Dec.15

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GOP 49

The Select Committee Will Issue Its Final Report Next Week

The Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 coup attempt is planning to go out with a bang, not a whimper. On Monday, it is going to announce its targets for referrals to the DoJ for prosecution.

Legally, recall that this is just a symbolic act with no significance. The DoJ can do whatever it wants to and doesn't need input from Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS). Politically, it is a whole different story. First of all, there will be massive publicity about the announcement, especially, if expected, the Committee calls for the indictment of Donald Trump on charges of sedition or seditious conspiracy and more. Trump will denounce the Committee, but how does that help his campaign for the presidency? Usually candidates want to play offense, not defense.

Second, like it or not, this puts enormous pressure on Merrick Garland to indict all the people the Committee refers to him. If he later says: "Well, a bipartisan committee spent a year working on this, interviewed 1,000 people, collected hundreds of hours of video and millions of pages of documents, and wrote a thick report with a zillion footnotes, but they don't really have a case," how is that going to go over? Then Democrats are going to start demanding Garland's impeachment. He's really going to have to do a lot of explaining if he drops the ball.

Thompson hasn't said what the recommendations will be, but the work of the Committee so far has suggested these categories are likely:

• Criminal referrals: It is virtually certain that the Committee will ask the DoJ to indict Trump. But there is also a substantial list of other people who are probably going to be named. These include Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and John Eastman, and probably more. There is evidence a-plenty against all of them. All of it will be turned over to the DoJ when the Committee shuts down.
  
  
• Campaign finance: Trump regularly misled his supporters into thinking they were donating to help him with election-related litigation when they were actually just contributing to his giant slush fund. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has called this "grift," though she didn't say if she thought it was a crime. But the DoJ might see it as a crime. In any event, it would be up to Congress to pass a law making it a crime for politicians to solicit money for one purpose and then to use it for something completely different.
  
  
• Ethics: The Committee subpoenaed five House members to appear before it and none of them showed up. It makes the House look rather toothless. There could be recommendations about dealing with recalcitrant members in the future. Also, nonmembers defied subpoenas. Doing something to make showing up a bit less optional could also show up in the list of recommendations.
  
  
• Corrupt lawyers: Many lawyers helped Trump try to steal the election. These include Eastman and Giuliani, but also Sidney Powell, Cleta Mitchell, Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb. Will the Committee urge the relevant state bars to disbar all of them? Will it urge Congress to take action?
  
  
• The Hatch Act: The Office of the Special Counsel is charged with investigating violations of the Hatch Act, which bars officeholders from using their political power for partisan goals. It fell down on the job during the Trump administration, with numerous violations and no enforcement. Maybe there will be recommendations about fixing the office.
  
  
• Inspectors general: The inspectors general are supposed to be independent watchdogs overseeing federal agencies. They failed miserably during the Trump administration. The Committee might have recommendations for increasing their powers and making it harder for an administration to block them.

Will any of these recommendations be carried out? We don't know. We do know that in general, Democrats favor "good government" and will be open to things like increasing the powers of the inspectors general to root out corruption. Republicans tend to look at the short term. Since the Democrats are in power now, they might be willing to increase the powers of the inspectors general to investigate the Biden administration and let the future take care of itself. Those powers won't magically disappear when the next Republican wins the White House, so getting it done now might make it worthwhile, even if the long-term effect is to increase scrutiny on a future Republican administration. (V)