Mark Your Calendars: Monday Is “Trump Criminal Referral Day” for the Jan. 6 Panel

Insurrection. Obstruction. Conspiracy.

Hello darkness, my old friend.Andrew Harnik/AP

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The January 6 committee investigating the Capitol attack will meet publicly on Monday to vote on a long-anticipated outcome of their deliberations: Whether to refer former president Donald Trump to the Department of Justice for criminal charges.

The answer appears to be “yes”, and you don’t have to wait to learn what’s on the table. According to multiple (AP) reports (CNN) published Friday night (NYT), the committee is gearing up to refer Trump for obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States. And in something of a surprise development, the committee is adding “insurrection” to the package. Trump’s allies are also on the hook: According to the Times, “the panel is likely to consider referring charges against John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who was an architect of Mr. Trump’s efforts to invalidate his electoral defeat.”

The referrals don’t automatically mean Attorney General Merrick Garland will pursue the committee’s recommendations. Federal prosecutors are already in the thick of their own extensive probe. And according to CNN, the committee is preparing to issue a slew of “five to six other categories of referrals, such as ethics referrals to the House Ethics Committee, bar discipline referrals and campaign finance referrals.”

But the vote will provide something of an exclamation point at the end of a series of riveting public hearings across 2022 that presented Trump as the chief enabler of a mob intent on halting the peaceful transfer of power, and the mastermind of a scheme that dated to before the 2020 election.

Still looking for a great holiday stocking-stuffer for that special someone? The panel is slated to release its final report on Wednesday.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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