House January 6 committee already cooperating with Justice Department

Committee is transmitting documents to the office of special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee investigations into Mr Trump’s conduct

The House January 6 select committee has reportedly been “extensively cooperating” with the Department of Justice probe into Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including through providing documents and data pertaining to Mr Trump’s former White House chief of staff and the conservative law professor who pushed for the plan.

According to Punchbowl News, the panel began transmitting documents to the office of special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee investigations into Mr Trump’s conduct.

Specifically, the committee has reportedly provided Mr Smith’s office with “documents and transcripts” relating to Mark Meadows, who served as Mr Trump’s final White House chief of staff from April 2020 through the end of his term on January 2021. The committee has also turned over materials related to John Eastman, the ex-Chapman University law professor who played a central role in Mr Trump’s efforts to pressure then-vice president Mike Pence into hijacking the certification of electoral votes on the day of the attack on the Capitol.

Text messages and other related evidence provided by Mr Meadows last year has also been turned over to the department, as well as interview transcripts with witnesses pertaining to Mr Trump’s efforts to cause fraudulent electoral college documents to be transmitted to the National Archives from states he lost in the 2020 election.

The panel’s cooperation with the department represents a marked change from how it conducted business during its’ 18-month probe Capitol attack.

The department has repeatedly asked the committee to provide interview transcripts with witnesses who might be relevant to the ongoing criminal probe into matters such as the fake elector scheme, but the panel had heretofore declined to cooperate.

On Wednesday, the select committee is expected to release an eight-chapter, more than 1,000-page report on the results of its investigation.