Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Sunday that he believes the Justice Department will charge former President Donald Trump after the House Judiciary Committee completed its investigation into his pressure campaign to overturn the election on January 6.
“If this isn’t a crime, I don’t know what is. “If a president can incite an insurgency and not be held accountable, then there’s really no limit to what a president can or cannot do,” Kinzinger, a member of the committee, said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“I believe the Justice Department will do the right thing. “I believe he will be charged, and frankly, I believe he should be,” he added, referring to the findings of the committee’s formal report from its 18-month investigation into the deadly Capitol riot in 2021.
Kinzinger stated that based on the evidence uncovered by the committee, he believes Trump should be charged and convicted.
“If he is not guilty of a crime, then I honestly fear for the future of this country, because now every future president of this country can say here’s the bar — do everything you can to stay in power,” he said.
Kinzinger, who decided not to run for re-election, was one of two Republican lawmakers on the Jan. 6 committee. The panel will be disbanded when Republicans take control of the House in the new Congress.
The committee issued its final report, spanning more than 800 pages, late last month, following a final public meeting in which all nine members voted to recommend that the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against Trump if he runs for president again in 2024.
The full report details the committee’s arguments, which largely blame Trump and his false claims of widespread election fraud for the Jan. 6 attack.
Trump has repeatedly accused the committee of being partisan. At the time of the criminal referrals, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung repeated a previous campaign statement, calling the panel a “Kangaroo court” that “held show trials by Never Trump partisans who are a stain on this country’s history.”
