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bennie thompson
Trump DHS 'Nitwits' Reverse TSA PreCheck Suspension After Backlash
One Democrat had called the halt during the department's partial shutdown a case of "Trump and Kristi Noem purposely punishing the American people and using them as pawns for their sadistic political games."
Feb 22, 2026
After a flurry of overnight outrage, President Donald Trump's administration reversed plans to suspend the Transportation Security Administration's PreCheck program during a partial shutdown of the US Department of Homeland Security.
"At this time, TSA PreCheck remains operational with no change for the traveling public. As staffing constraints arise, TSA will evaluate on a case-by-case basis and adjust operations accordingly," the agency said Sunday morning. "Courtesy escorts, such as those for members of Congress, have been suspended to allow officers to focus on the mission of securing America's skies."
The Washington Post reported that a DHS official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the reversal was "based off of conversations the secretary had with the White House and TSA."
DHS partially shut down last week amid a funding fight in Congress, with Democrats demanding reforms in response to agents with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) openly violating the rights of immigrants and US citizens alike, and even killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti last month in Minnesota.
The department said late Saturday that it would close PreCheck lanes, which allow travelers at US airports to move through security more quickly; halt the CBP Global Entry service, which allows expedited clearance for arriving in the United States; and pause all non-disaster-related Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response efforts.
"Shutdowns have real-world consequences, not just for the men and women of DHS and their families who go without a paycheck, but it endangers our national security," said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, blaming the changes on Democrats in Congress. "The American people depend on this department every day, and we are making tough but necessary workforce and resource decisions to mitigate the damage inflicted by these politicians."
Critics in journalism, politics, the travel industry, and beyond quickly highlighted how PreCheck and Global Entry reduce the strain on not only air travelers but also federal workers across multiple DHS agencies.
"These nitwits are at it again," said House Committee on Homeland Security Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). "This is Trump and Kristi Noem purposely punishing the American people and using them as pawns for their sadistic political games. TSA PreCheck and Global Entry REDUCE airport lines and ease the burden on DHS staff who are working without pay because of Trump's abuse of the Department and killing of American citizens."
"Trump and Kristi are making your lives harder—and your travel less safe—all on purpose because they know you don't trust them," he continued. "They pulled these games with FEMA disaster response last week, now this madness. They would rather force Americans to miss their travel waiting in long lines at the airport than stop Trump's secret police from shooting our neighbors. The American people—who want ICE reined in—will not fall for this bullshit. The administration must reverse this decision immediately."
While the Trump administration reversed course on PreCheck, the Global Entry suspension and FEMA restrictions remain in effect as a major snowstorm hit the East Coast.
"Everyone knows Donald Trump and DHS use bullying tactics—this is another one of them," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in a Sunday statement about Global Entry. "The Trump administration is choosing to inflict pain on the public instead of adopting commonsense ICE reforms."
"In the 43-day historic Trump government shutdown DHS never changed the Global Entry program's status," Schumer said, referring to the funding battle that ended in November when a short list of Democratic senators gave in. "Democrats are fighting against this exact kind of abuse."
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'Noem's Impeachment Is the Bare Minimum': Fury at DHS Chief Grows After Pretti Killing
“The abuses of power we’re seeing from ICE are the latest proof that she has lost control over her own department and staff,” said one Democratic senator.
Jan 26, 2026
Demands for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's impeachment are growing, and not just from progressive Democrats in deep-blue districts.
Rep. Lauren Gillen (D-NY), one of just seven House Democrats who voted last week for a bill that further would further increase funding for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), called for Noem's impeachment in a Sunday social media post, one day after federal immigration agents killed Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti.
"Another US citizen has been killed at the hands of ICE and there must be accountability, which is why Secretary Noem must be impeached immediately," Gillen wrote. "Under her leadership, ICE has targeted US citizens and children and killed Americans. She is not focused on safety or border security; she’s focused on chaos and self-promotion, undermining local law enforcement and stoking violence as a result. The American people deserve better."
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, called for impeaching Noem on Saturday and then reiterated his call on Monday with a social media post that read, "It's time for impeachment!"
Sen. Jackie Rosen (D-Nev.) on Sunday also called for impeaching Noem, whom she described in a statement to the Associated Press as an "abject failure leading the Department of Homeland Security for the last year."
"The abuses of power we’re seeing from ICE are the latest proof that she has lost control over her own department and staff," Rosen added.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has been demanding Noem's impeachment since an ICE agent gunned down Minneapolis resident Renee Good earlier this month, described removing the homeland security secretary from her post as only the first step in bringing an end to the federal government's attacks on immigrant communities across the country.
"Voting NO on the DHS funding bill is the bare minimum," she wrote in a Sunday social media post. "Backing Kristi Noem’s impeachment is the bare minimum. Holding law-breaking ICE agents legally accountable is the bare minimum. ICE is beyond reform. Abolish it."
Even some Republicans have started protesting the federal government's operations in Minnesota.
Chris Madel, a Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, announced on Monday that he was suspending his campaign in the wake of Pretti's shooting.
In a video posted on social media, Madel accused the Trump administration of enacting "retribution on the citizens of our state" with an operation that has "expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats."
" United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear," Madel added. "United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong."
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‘Total Amateur Hour’: FBI Official Says Antifa Is #1 Threat in US—But Can’t Say Where, Who, or What It Is
"Just a complete admission here that the entire ‘antifa’ threat narrative is totally manufactured by this administration," said one critic.
Dec 11, 2025
A top FBI official struggled on Thursday to answer basic questions about antifa, a loosely organized collective of anti-fascist activists that he labeled the top terrorist threat facing the US.
Michael Glasheen, operations director of the FBI's National Security Branch, testified before the US House Committee on Homeland Security that antifa was "the most immediate violent threat" facing Americans today when it comes to domestic terrorism.
But when Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, asked Glasheen for specifics about this purportedly dire threat, he mostly came up empty.
"So where is antifa headquarters?" Thompson asked him.
Glasheen paused for several seconds and then said, "What we're doing right now with the organization..." before Thompson interrupted him.
"Where in the United States does antifa exist?" asked Thompson.
"We are building out the infrastructure right now," Glasheen replied.
"So what does that mean?" asked a bewildered Thompson. "I'm just, we're trying to get information. You said antifa is a terrorist organization. Tell us, as a committee, how did you come to that? Whether they exist, how many members do they have in the United States as of right now?"
"Well, that's very fluid," Glasheen said. "It's ongoing for us to understand that... no different from al-Qaeda and ISIS."
Thompson again interrupted and tried to make Glasheen answer his original question.
"If you said antifa is the No. 1 domestic terrorist organization operating in the United States," he said, "I just need to know where they are, how many people. I don't want a name, I don't want anything like that. Just, how many people have you identified, with the FBI, that antifa is made of?"
"Well, the investigations are active..." Glasheen said.
Thompson then became incredulous.
"Sir, you wouldn't come to this committee and say something you can't prove," he said. "I know you wouldn't do that. But you did."
GLASHEEN: Antifa is our primary concern right now. That's the most immediate violent threat we're facing
BENNIE THOMPSON: Where is antifa headquartered?
GLASHEEN: ... ... ... we are building out the infrastructure right now
THOMPSON: What does that mean? pic.twitter.com/FBzRJ5dCBj
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 11, 2025
Many observers were stunned that Glasheen appeared to know so little about what he proclaimed to be the top domestic terrorist threat facing the US.
"Total amateur hour in US law enforcement," remarked Democracy Docket news editor Matthew Kupfer, "where the No. 1 terror threat is an organization that does not formally exist and a career FBI official is dancing around before a congressional committee trying to make the Trump strategy sound legit."
Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan argued that Glasheen's testimony was proof that the administration was simply concocting domestic terrorism threats with zero basis in reality.
"Wow," Hasan marveled. "Just a complete admission here that the entire ‘antifa’ threat narrative is totally manufactured by this administration."
Fred Wellman, a Democratic congressional candidate in Missouri, wondered how many actual dangerous criminals are running free while the FBI focuses on taking down an organization that it apparently knows nothing about.
"This would be comical if there wasn’t real world impact from this idiocy," Wellman wrote. "We have real crimes and real threats and they are chasing a fake 'organization' for politics."
Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee also piled on Glasheen, citing his testimony as evidence that the Trump administration is completely unserious about law enforcement.
"If your 'top threat' has no headquarters, no organization, and no definition then it’s not a top threat," they posted on social media. "The Trump administration is ignoring real threats, and the American people see right through it."
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ICE's 'Frightening' Facial Recognition App is Scanning US Citizens Without Their Consent
"An ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien," said the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Nov 01, 2025
Immigration agents are using facial recognition software as "definitive" evidence to determine immigration status and is collecting data from US citizens without their consent. In some cases, agents may detain US citizens, including ones who can provide their birth certificates, if the app says they are in the country illegally.
These are a few of the findings from a series of articles published this past week by 404 Media, which has obtained documents and video evidence showing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents are using a smartphone app in the field during immigration stops, scanning the faces of people on the street to verify their citizenship.
The report found that agents frequently conduct stops that "seem to have little justification beyond the color of someone’s skin... then look up more information on that person, including their identity and potentially their immigration status."
While it is not clear what application the agencies are using, 404 previously reported that ICE is using an app called Mobile Fortify that allows ICE to simply point a camera at a person on the street. The photos are then compared with a bank of more than 200 million images and dozens of government databases to determine info about the person, including their name, date of birth, nationality, and information about their immigration status.
On Friday, 404 published an internal document from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which stated that "ICE does not provide the opportunity for individuals to decline or consent to the collection and use of biometric data/photograph collection." The document also states that the image of any face that agents scan, including those of US citizens, will be stored for 15 years.
The outlet identified several videos that have been posted to social media of immigration officials using the technology.
In one, taken in Chicago, armed agents in sunglasses and face coverings are shown accosting a pair of Hispanic teenagers on bicycles, asking where they are from. The 16-year-old boy who filmed the encounter said he is "from here"—an American citizen—but that he only has a school ID on him. The officer tells the boy he'll be allowed to leave if he'll "do a facial." The other officer then snaps a photo of him with a phone camera and asks his name.
In another video, also in Chicago, agents are shown surrounding a driver, who declines to show his ID. Without asking, one officer points his phone at the man. "I’m an American citizen, so leave me alone,” the driver says. "Alright, we just got to verify that,” the officer responds.
Even if the people approached in these videos had produced identification proving their citizenship, there's no guarantee that agents would have accepted it, especially if the app gave them information to the contrary.
On Wednesday, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), told 404 that ICE agents will even trust the app's results over a person's government documents.
“ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a ‘definitive’ determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate—if the app says the person is an alien,” he said.
This is despite the fact that, as Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told 404, “face recognition technology is notoriously unreliable, frequently generating false matches and resulting in a number of known wrongful arrests across the country."
Thompson said: "ICE using a mobile biometrics app in ways its developers at CBP never intended or tested is a frightening, repugnant, and unconstitutional attack on Americans’ rights and freedoms.”
According to an investigation published in October by ProPublica, more than 170 US citizens have been detained by immigration agents, often in squalid conditions, since President Donald Trump returned to office in January. In many of these cases, these individuals have been detained because agents wrongly claimed the documents proving their citizenship are false.
During a press conference this week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem denied this reality, stating that "no American citizens have been arrested or detained" as part of Trump's "mass deportation" crusade.
"We focus on those who are here illegally," she said.
But as DHS's internal document explains, facial recognition software is necessary in the first place because "ICE agents do not know an individual's citizenship at the time of the initial encounter."
David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, explains that the use of such technology suggests that ICE's operations are not "highly targeted raids," as it likes to portray, but instead "random fishing expeditions."
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House Dems Launch Probe Into ‘Violent’ ICE Raid of Chicago Apartment Complex
“Treating a US city like a war zone is intolerable. We urge you to end such violent, middle-of-the-night operations that traumatize entire communities and put innocent men, women and children, including US citizens, at risk.”
Oct 08, 2025
Democrats on the House Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees on Tuesday announced they were launching a probe into a widely condemned raid by federal immigration officials on a Chicago apartment complex last week.
Led by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the Democrats said that they are demanding answers from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pamela Bondi about why it was necessary to deploy the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to conduct a raid reportedly without warrants that left local residents terrified.
"According to media reports, armed federal agents in military fatigues approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story, 130-unit apartment building, using flash-bang grenades, busting down doors, and pulling men, women, and children from their beds," the Democrats wrote in a letter to Noem and Bondi. "Agents put residents in zip ties and led them to unmarked vans to wait for hours while handcuffed, with children separated from their parents."
The Democrats also cited reports about "US citizens and military veterans" being "dragged out of their apartments in zip ties and detained for hours" with no explanation. They noted that residents had reported significant property damage after the raid, including doors that were blown off their hinges and holes that were left in their walls.
They also accused the federal government of waging a "violent, heavy-handed immigration enforcement operation" that left an entire community in trauma.
"Treating a US city like a war zone is intolerable," they emphasized. "We urge you to end such violent, middle-of-the-night operations that traumatize entire communities and put innocent men, women and children, including US citizens, at risk."
The Democrats' investigation into the raid comes as President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning pushed for jailing both Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Trump on Tuesday also deployed Texas National Guard troops to Chicago, over the objections of both Pritzker and Johnson.
The human rights group Amnesty International USA said Tuesday that in addition to "a full independent investigation into the unlawful raid," Congress "must immediately stop funding ICE and hold ICE and other federal agencies accountable for their lawlessness and abuses."
“The government has an obligation to uphold the rule of law and ensure that nobody is above the law,” said Paul O’Brien, the group's executive director. “These raids are an attack on human rights and a threat to everybody in the U.S. Federal officials who committed human rights violations during the raids, including those with command responsibility, must be held accountable.”
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Dems Call for Investigation Into Trump NWS-FEMA Cuts After Texas Flood
"There are some serious questions about the impact of President Trump's assault on NOAA, the National Weather Service, and FEMA, and whether it made these floods more deadly," said Sen. Chris Murphy.
Jul 09, 2025
With at least 111 people confirmed dead and more than 150 still missing in Texas' catastrophic flooding as of Wednesday, Democrats in Congress are demanding answers about whether the Trump administration's cuts to federal weather monitoring and emergency management agencies may have hampered the response.
Since President Donald Trump retook office, his administration has unilaterally introduced cuts that have substantially reduced the number of employees at the National Weather Service (NWS) and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which forecast weather and collect environmental data. It has done the same to the Federal Emergency Management System (FEMA), which coordinates responses to natural disasters.
And following the passage of the GOP budget reconciliation package last week, further cuts to these agencies are in the works.
As the death count has climbed, Democrats in both the House and Senate have issued calls to investigate whether these cuts may have played a role in making the horrific situation in Texas worse.
"There are some serious questions about the impact of President Trump's assault on NOAA, the National Weather Service, and FEMA, and whether it made these floods more deadly," said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in a video posted to X Tuesday night. "We aren't doing our job if we aren't seeking answers to these questions."
Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut NOAA staff by 11% through a combination of terminations and buyouts. According to The Associated Press, this included "hundreds of jobs at NWS, with staffing down by at least 20% at nearly half of the 122 NWS field offices nationally and at least a half dozen no longer staffed 24 hours a day."
FEMA, meanwhile has shed around 2,000 permanent employees, around a third of its permanent workforce.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed what she called "false claims" that Trump's cuts affected Texas' disaster response. Jackson said the National Weather Service "did their job, even issuing a flood watch more than 12 hours in advance." Jason Runyen, a meteorologist with the NWS, also told the AP that the NWS handling Austin and San Antonio had more forecasters on duty than normal.
However, questions still remain about how cuts may have affected other parts of the emergency response.
According to former NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, who spoke to CNN on Tuesday, the problem was not the NWS forecasting, but the failure to disseminate warnings about the floods to the public.
"We need to understand why that last mile is where the problem was in terms of getting alerts out," Spinrad said.
According to the AP, the NWS office for Austin-San Antonio had six vacancies, including "a key manager responsible for issuing warnings and coordinating with local emergency management officials." That official, who'd held the position for 17 years, left in April after one of DOGE's mass emails urging federal workers to take early retirements.
In a Monday letter to Roderick Anderson, the Commerce Department's acting inspector general, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) noted reporting from The New York Times Saturday, which quoted several former NWS officials who said the response suffered from "the loss of experienced people who would typically have helped communicate with local authorities in the hours after flash flood warnings were issued overnight."
"The roles left unfilled are not marginal, they're critical," Schumer said. "These are the experts responsible for modeling storm impacts, monitoring rising water levels, issuing flood warnings, and coordinating directly with local emergency managers about when to warn the public and issue evacuation orders."
Schumer called on the inspector general to begin investigating why these positions were vacant and whether it affected the emergency response or forecasting.
In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) urged against jumping to hasty conclusions with the search for victims still on, but agreed there should be an investigation.
"When you have flash flooding, there's a risk that you won't have the personnel to make that—do that analysis, do the predictions in the best way," Castro said. "And it could lead to tragedy. So, I don’t want to sit here and say conclusively that that was the case, but I do think that it should be investigated."
Other Democrats have raised the possibility that cuts to FEMA may have played a role. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, which has jurisdiction over FEMA, called for hearings on the agency's capacity to respond.
He noted that Trump has said he wants to eliminate FEMA altogether and "bring it down to the state level," a decision Thompson said is more dangerous than ever as climate change makes extreme weather more frequent.
DOGE also canceled $880 million worth of funding for FEMA's BRIC program, which focused on pre-disaster planning. In Kerr County, one of the hardest hit by the storm, the flood system has been described as "antiquated," lacking "basic components like sirens and river gauges." The county applied for pre-disaster mitigation funding from FEMA to upgrade their system in 2017 and 2018, during the first Trump administration, but was denied.
"This administration cannot pretend that disasters like this are happening in a vacuum. They cannot ignore the fact that natural disasters are becoming more severe and more frequent due to climate change," Thompson said.
On the storm response, he added: "The federal government—as well as state and local governments—all have a role to play. We must also determine if any budget cuts or staffing shortages at the federal level—of any kind—made matters worse."
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Trump Ally Peter Navarro Gets Four-Month Sentence for Defying Jan. 6 Panel
The congressional committee's chair said the guilty verdict and sentence "are the consequence of Mr. Navarro's stubborn insistence that his short stint in the executive branch somehow put him above the law."
Jan 25, 2024
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Peter Navarro, an ex-adviser to former U.S. President Donald Trump, to four months in prison for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the congressional panel that investigated the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
The prison sentence and $9,500 fine come after a jury in September convicted Navarro for refusing to show up for a deposition or turn over documents to the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
"In all of this, even today, there is little acknowledgment of what your obligation is as an American to cooperate with Congress, to provide them with information they are seeking," U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta told Navarro on Thursday, according to Politico. "They had a job to do. And you made it harder. It's really that simple."
The judge, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by former President Barack Obama, also pushed back against claims from Navarro that his prosecution was politically motivated—a tactic Trump has also employed regarding his various civil and criminal cases while campaigning for the GOP's 2024 nomination.
"You are not a victim. You are not the object of a political prosecution," Mehta told Navarro. "These are circumstances of your own making."
"Nancy Pelosi's not responsible for your prosecution. Joe Biden's not responsible for your prosecution," he said, referring to the Democratic former House speaker and president. "It's those kinds of statements from somebody who knows better... that contributes to why our politics are so corrosive."
Speaking to reporters outside the D.C. courthouse on Thursday, Navarro made clear that he is appealing and expects his case to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court—which has a right-wing supermajority that includes three Trump appointees. Mehta put off a decision on whether he will remain free during the appeals process.
Navarro is the second Trump ally to be convicted for defying a subpoena from the panel, joining Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, who was convicted in July 2022 and also sentenced to four months behind bars. Bannon hasn't yet served any time. A three-judge panel heard his appeal in November but has not issued a decision.
While other Trump allies—including Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—blasted Navarro's sentence on Thursday, it was welcomed by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chaired the bipartisan House select committee.
"Peter Navarro abandoned his oath to the Constitution and abused the public trust while he worked as a trade adviser to former President Trump when, in the days leading up to January 6th, he worked to keep a defeated incumbent in the White House," said Thompson. "He abused it again when he willfully defied a lawful subpoena from the January 6th select committee to answer questions about the leadup to that deadly day."
"Last summer's guilty verdict and today's sentence," he added, "are the consequence of Mr. Navarro's stubborn insistence that his short stint in the executive branch somehow put him above the law."
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WATCH LIVE: Criminal Referrals for Trump Expected During Final Jan. 6 Committee Hearing
"I think you have to be treated like any other American who breaks the law, and that is, you have to be prosecuted," said one member of the panel on Sunday.
Dec 19, 2022
The final public hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will be held Monday afternoon, a televised session that will include a vote on issuing criminal referrals against former president Donald Trump to the U.S. Department of Justice.
In public statements and interviews over recent days, committee members have made clear their shared belief that Trump is guilty of criminal conduct related to his involvement in the lead up to the insurrection that took place on January 2, 2021 and his behavior on that day.
"I think the president has violated multiple criminal laws," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during a Sunday appearance on CNN. "And I think you have to be treated like any other American who breaks the law, and that is, you have to be prosecuted."
While referrals by the committee would carrying no specific legal consequences for Trump, the ultimate question remains whether Attorney General Merrick Garland will file criminal charges against the former president who last month announced he is seeking the presidency in 2024.
Watch Monday's hearing live at 1:00 pm local time in Washington, D.C.:
According to the Washington Post:
The criminal and civil referrals will precede the release of a final report compiled by the committee that will tell the most comprehensive story to date of the events leading up to the attack and Donald Trump's role in fomenting it.
The committee is expected to vote on referring Trump for three charges: obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the United States and insurrection. Politico first reported that the three charges would be considered by the panel.
In addition to DOJ referrals for Trump, the committee is also considering consequences over ethics violations for Republican members of Congress who refused to comply with subpoenas issued by the panel.
"None of the subpoenaed members complied," said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a committee member, said during a closed-door meeting on Sunday, according to reporting by NBC News. "And we are now referring four members of Congress for appropriate sanction with the House Ethics Committee for failure to comply."
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'There Is Evidence of Criminality': Jan. 6 Panel Meets to Decide Referrals to DOJ
The committee is reportedly considering criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump and four associates: Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and Mark Meadows.
Dec 11, 2022
Members of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol are expected to finalize decisions on criminal referrals during a virtual meeting Sunday afternoon.
CBS News' Margaret Brennan inquired about the panel's plans earlier Sunday, when Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)--a member of the subcommittee created to deal with outstanding issues, including potential referrals--to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)--appeared on "Face the Nation."
Pointing to reporting that the committee is considering referrals for former President Donald Trump, ex-DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, right-wing attorney John Eastman, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, she asked, "Is there a consensus on whether to send a referral for criminal prosecution to the Justice Department, and would doing that be anything more than symbolic?"
"I think we are in common agreement about what our approach should be. I'm not ready or authorized at this point to tell you what that is. We are, as a subcommittee--several of us that were charged with making the recommendation about referrals--gonna be making that recommendation to full committee today," Schiff said, adding that the decisions will be included in a panel report set to be released later this month.
Schiff continued:
What I can tell you about the process is we're looking at: What is the quantum of evidence that we have against individuals? What is the impact of making a referral? Are we gonna create some suggestion by referring some, that others, there wasn't sufficient evidence, when we don't know, for example, what evidence is in the position of the Justice Department?
So, if we do make referrals, we want to be very careful about how we do them. But I think we're all certainly in agreement that there is evidence of criminality here and we want to make sure that the Justice Department is aware of that.
In the wake of Trump's announcement last month that he is seeking the GOP's presidential nomination for 2024--despite his various legal issues and inciting last year's deadly Capitol attack with his "Big Lie" about the 2020 contest--Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor, as special counsel to oversee ongoing investigations involving the twice-impeached former president.
The DOJ notably does not need a referral from Congress to bring charges. Referencing the department's probes, Brennan asked Schiff, "So what does the committee sending a referral do other than look political?"
"Well, look, we have been far out ahead in most respects of the Justice Department in conducting our investigation," the congressman responded. "I think they have made use of the evidence that we have presented in open hearings. I think they'll make use of the evidence that we present in our report to further their investigations."
"And I think it makes an important statement, not a political one, but a statement about the evidence of an attack on the institutions of our democracy and the peaceful transfer of power, that Congress examining an attack on itself is willing to report criminality," he added. "So I think it's an important decision in its own right if we go forward with it and one that the department ought to give due consideration to."
Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) had confirmed to reporters on Thursday that the committee planned to make decisions about criminal referrals during Sunday's meeting.
"I think the more we looked at the body of evidence that we had collected," he said, "we just felt that while we're not in the business of investigating people for criminal activities, we just couldn't overlook some of them."
The panel's only two Republicans--Vice Chair Liz Cheney (Wyo.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.)--are both leaving office in a few weeks and the GOP is set to take control of the House. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who hopes to be the next speaker, has vowed to hold hearings investigating the committee.
The Hill reported Sunday that McCarthy and the other four members of Congress who ignored subpoenas from the committee--GOP Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), and Reps. Scott Perry (Pa.)--could be referred to the House Ethics Committee rather than the DOJ.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional law expert who chairs the subcommittee focusing on referrals, pointed to the relevant part of the U.S. Constitution.
"The speech or debate clause makes it clear that Congress doesn't hold members of Congress accountable in the judiciary or other places in the government," he said. "Members of Congress are only held accountable through Article 1 in their own chambers for their actions."
This post has been updated with reporting about the five House Republicans who defied subpoenas from the panel.
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Jan. 6 Panel Created Subcommittee for Potential Criminal Referrals to DOJ
"We're looking at potential referrals or criminal offenses and for civil offenses and for general lawlessness where it might not otherwise be obvious," said Rep. Jamie Raskin, head of the subcommittee.
Nov 17, 2022
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has created a subcommittee to deal with "outstanding issues," including potential criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, the panel's chair confirmed Thursday.
"We need to have a decision as to what we do with the members who did not recognize the subpoenas."
Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told journalists at the Capitol that he established the subcommittee, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), "about a month ago."
The subcommittee's other members are Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the full panel's vice chair. Thompson noted that "they're all lawyers."
Raskin explained that "we're looking at potential referrals or criminal offenses and for civil offenses and for general lawlessness where it might not otherwise be obvious."
"We're looking at criminal and civil referrals for people who have broken the law and may have escaped scrutiny," added Raskin, who previously served as the lead manager for former President Donald Trump's historic second impeachment for inciting the Capitol attack with his "Big Lie" about the 2020 election.
Thompson said that "we need to have a decision as to what we do with the members who did not recognize the subpoenas. It's cleaning up every unfinished piece of work for the committee. And that part of it just fit better in some subcommittee. Let them come back and report, and we'll make a decision."
According to Axios, "Thompson said the panel will also look at how to respond to the DOJ's request for deposition transcripts and other information."
Trump announced his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday, a day after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the select committee requiring him to appear for a deposition.
Thompson and Cheney said in a statement Monday that though the ex-president "initially suggested that he would testify before the committee, he has since filed a lawsuit asking the courts to protect him from giving testimony. His attorneys have made no attempt to negotiate an appearance of any sort, and his lawsuit parades out many of the same arguments that courts have rejected repeatedly over the last year."
"The truth is that Donald Trump, like several of his closest allies, is hiding from the select committee's investigation and refusing to do what more than a thousand other witnesses have done," they added. "Donald Trump orchestrated a scheme to overturn a presidential election and block the transfer of power. He is obligated to provide answers to the American people. In the days ahead, the committee will evaluate next steps in the litigation and regarding the former president's noncompliance."
The committee members voted unanimously to subpoena Trump at the end of the panel's last public hearing in October--an event that led New York University law professor Ryan Goodman to conclude, "I think they were trying to hand the Justice Department all the evidence on a silver platter."
Goodman was among former federal prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other legal experts who on Thursday published a model prosecution memorandum laying out potential charges against Trump related to his handling of classified government documents since he left office.
Five congressional Republicans--Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Scott Perry (Penn.), and Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), likely the next speaker of the House after the GOP won a majority in last week's midterms--have also ignored subpoenas from the select committee.
With Republicans set to take control of the House in January, the committee is on a tight deadline to conclude its work. Thompson told reporters Thursday that the panel is planning to release its final report next month.
"Our goal is to get it completed soon so we can get it to the printer," he said. "We plan to have our product out sometime in December."
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