US House panel recommends criminal charges against Trump

Updated 8.45pm

The House panel that investigated last year's attack on the US Capitol recommended on Monday that criminal charges be filed against former president Donald Trump.

The committee unanimously recommended that the Justice Department charge Trump with inciting an insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiring to defraud the US government and making false statements.

"The committee has developed significant evidence that president Trump intended to disrupt the peaceful transition of power under our Constitution," Representative Jamie Raskin said as he outlined the panel's findings.

"We believe that the evidence described by my colleagues today, and assembled throughout our hearings, warrants a criminal referral of former President Donald J. Trump," Raskin said.

A protester sits in the Senate Chamber on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. File photo: AFP

'Unfit for any office'

Before the vote, the congressional panel probing the deadly assault branded Donald Trump "unfit for any office". 

The decision is the culmination of an 18-month probe that interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and held explosive public hearings on the storming of Congress on...