We begin today’s roundup with Norman Eisen, E. Danya Perry and Fred Wertheimer’s analysis at The New York Times:
David Rohde at The New Yorker:
The Washington Post editorial board:
And here’s David Frum’s analysis:
In voting on Monday to issue a sweeping final report, the Jan. 6 committee has honored its duty and the Constitution. When the full report is released this week, there will be much to review and process for our country, our government and American history. But given the facts that have been revealed, these hearings had to end with criminal referrals against Donald Trump and his minions.
The House committee articulated a powerful legal case encompassing the many schemes of Mr. Trump, John Eastman and others, including the audacious promotion of false electoral slates. The committee also recommended prosecution of Mr. Trump on charges of inciting insurrection and giving aid or comfort to insurrectionists — a charge unseen since the Civil War. The referrals make clear to prosecutors and to Americans just how dangerous the attempted coup was, and how vulnerable our system was (and is) to such assaults.
David Rohde at The New Yorker:
The committee’s action is unprecedented. No President in American history has ever before been referred by Congress for criminal prosecution.
[...]
Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, told me that he believed the committee’s referral has increased the odds that Trump will face prosecution. “While it’s still not completely certain that Trump will be prosecuted, I think the referral and the appointment of the special counsel make it more likely that it will happen,” he said.
The Washington Post editorial board:
The committee has secured its legacy in different ways, providing a searing picture of what occurred on Jan. 6, 2021, and exhibiting the cowardice of those who, out of fear of Mr. Trump, refused to help it reckon with that dark day.
The public now knows much more about Mr. Trump’s culpability. New details, including videotaped testimony from former Trump aides, showed Mr. Trump had been told he’d lost the election but nevertheless leaned on state officials, the Justice Department, his vice president and others to keep him in power — a campaign that resulted in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
And here’s David Frum’s analysis:
For six years, the job of upholding the rule of law against Donald Trump has been passed from one unwilling set of hands to the next. Now the job has returned to where it started. There is nobody else to pass it to. The recommendation has arrived. The time for justice has come.