US Capitol riots: List of laws Trump broke as panel seeks criminal charges

A panel in the United States – which was constituted amid probe in the Capitol Hill riots case – on Monday recommended that criminal charges be filed against former US president Donald Trump.

The committee agreed that during their 17-month probe, they found “enough evidence” to urge that Trump and others face four federal criminal charges in the case, reported news agency AP.

However, Trump has accused the panel of recommending “fake charges” against him – as a “part of an attempt to prevent him from running for the White House again”. “The fake charges made by the highly partisan Unselect Committee of January 6th have already been submitted, prosecuted, and tried in the form of Impeachment Hoax #2,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

Here is a list of charges that the House panel recommended being filed against Donald Trump:

Obstruction of an Official Proceeding

According to the panel, Donald Trump was a part of an effort to obstruct the official proceedings – the January 6 joint session of Congress at which electoral votes were to be counted and Democrat Joe Biden was to be certified as the lawful winner in the US presidential elections last year. The panel said that it has “substantial evidence” which showed that “Trump was attempting to prevent or delay the counting of lawful certified Electoral College votes” and was “personally involved through his pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to derail the meeting”, reported Bloomberg.

Conspiring to defraud the US

The House panel has that Trump tried to “obstruct the certification of the election despite being told by aides that there was no fraud that could have affected the outcome, by angrily beseeching Pence to delay certification even though he was told there was no legal basis for him to do so and by working with others – both inside and outside of government – on a multi-part plan to stay in power,” reported Bloomberg. In America, it is a crime to work with someone else to carry out fraud against the US.

The panel also said that other Trump associates are engaged in the same conspiracy including a former senior Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark – who had pledged to advance Trump’s efforts to undo the presidential election results if named to the position of acting attorney general.

Conspiracy to make a false statement

The ‘Conspiracy to Make a False Statement’ statute is violated when a materially false statement is knowingly made to the federal government, or if the lies are covered up. The US capitol attack investigation committee said that Donald Trump broke this law when he used other individuals to submit “slates of fake electors” to Congress and the National Archives, reported Bloomberg.

“The certifications signed by Trump electors in multiple states were patently false” because Biden won those states. Nothing can be more material to the Joint Session of Congress to certify the election than the question of which candidate won which States,” the panel said.

Inciting or aiding an insurrection

This law is violated when one “incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto.” According to the committee, the evidence shows that the former US president “summoned the mob, provoked them after the threat of violence was clear, and inflamed their anger.”