Speaker 1: January sixth panel has unanimously urged criminal prosecution for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Let's dig into it again, joining us live as Bloomberg
Speaker 1: coggressional reporter Billy House. Thank you again, Billy. Now we
Speaker 1: know this is not legally binding to go through it
Speaker 1: for criminal prosecution, but the but the charges are severe,
Speaker 1: so let's go through them. And this is you might
Speaker 1: want to comment to a result of serious exhaustive work. Oh,
Speaker 1: it has been. I mean we're seventeen months of investigation,
Speaker 1: uh by the committee and millions of dollars and as
Speaker 1: you know, eighteen well publicized hearings. Um. But the referrals
Speaker 1: are essentially four charges, including the assistance of an insurrection,
Speaker 1: which is very severe, could result in disqualification of a person,
Speaker 1: in this case former President Trump from running for office again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the referrals do go to them. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: don't mean to terrupt. The referrals go to the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, which is where King on on two separate
Speaker 1: investigations of its own. It's absolutely correct that, in fact
Speaker 1: that the Department of Justice, at this point, seventeen months
Speaker 1: after the the House Committee began its work, maybe even
Speaker 1: further along than the House Committee ended up. So we
Speaker 1: don't know where they are, but we know that they
Speaker 1: are well into some of these issues. And so is
Speaker 1: a separate investigation out of Georgia and Fulton County, Atlanta.
Speaker 1: So the committee mentioned Donald Trump and John Eastman by name. Now,
Speaker 1: unless I missed it and I may have gone away
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom or something, I'm watching the hearing,
Speaker 1: they mentioned them as co conspirators. Uh, they mentioned more
Speaker 1: names to come. Do we have an inkling of who? Well,
Speaker 1: we do, I mean, but they do it in a
Speaker 1: kind of, uh, I don't want to say soft peddling way,
Speaker 1: but with they they suggest, with the number of the charges,
Speaker 1: including the obstruction and the conspiracy charges, that there are
Speaker 1: a number of individuals and they run from former White
Speaker 1: House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, to Justice Department lawyer
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Clark to even former mayor julianni who had played
Speaker 1: roles in some of these activities. And therefore they suggest
Speaker 1: the committee that is that the Justice Department look into
Speaker 1: those or scrutinize their roles, and they have ethics referrals
Speaker 1: to that they're going to uh get to, including Kevin McCarthy.
Speaker 1: Does it make hard harder for McCarthy's bid to become speaker,
Speaker 1: which is challenged already. It is challenged, but ironically it's
Speaker 1: the only challenger. Is also one of the four House
Speaker 1: members with with the high geop leader UH to be
Speaker 1: slapped with a referral to the House Ethics Committee. Andy
Speaker 1: Biggs of Arizona, who says he's running against McCarthy UH,
Speaker 1: is also being accused by the Committee of of you know,
Speaker 1: not not obliging a subpoena and therefore should face ethics charges. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: I heard conjecture today that McCarthy actually to get in
Speaker 1: and may have to make deals where it would take
Speaker 1: one House member to UH to challenge him and he'd
Speaker 1: be out. Is that correct? And how does that work? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a complicated process. Here's here's the rub. The entire House,
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats, four thirty five members vote on January
Speaker 1: three who will be the next speaker. UH. McCarthy and
Speaker 1: Republicans hold a very slim majority, only four seats right now, UH,
Speaker 1: And if Biggs and his group of five or so
Speaker 1: decided to hold out, Arthur's gonna have a tough time
Speaker 1: getting the require two votes. The process is, until somebody
Speaker 1: can get at least plus one of the total House votes,
Speaker 1: you don't have a speaker. You keep doing the reballoting.
Speaker 1: Now that hasn't happened for decades, but it's shaping up
Speaker 1: to be a very real possibility this January. Okay, all right, Billy,
Speaker 1: great work, and this is uh, the committee work, the
Speaker 1: body of work is just absolutely amazing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: That is Billy House, Congressional Bloomberg reporter,