Lawmakers cooperating with DOJ, reports say

The House select committee investigating the 2021 Capitol riot is providing documents and transcripts to the Department of Justice because the agency conducts multiple probes involving former President Donald Trump, multiple news outlets reported Tuesday.

The committee’s reportedly extensive cooperation with the Justice Department was revealed someday after lawmakers on the panel voted unanimously to refer Trump to the DOJ for criminal prosecution.

The committee began sending special counsel Jack Smith documents and transcripts last week, Punchbowl News reported earlier. Smith had asked the panel in a Dec. 5 letter to share all of the materials it had gathered from its 18-month probe, in response to the outlet. NBC News confirmed later Tuesday that the committee had received the letter from Smith’s office, citing a source conversant in the matter.

Much of what the committee has given to DOJ is reportedly related to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and attorney John Eastman, who pushed a legal theory to attempt to reverse Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden. The DOJ has also received Meadows’ text messages, together with witness transcripts related to an Eastman-backed scheme to attempt to appoint pro-Trump electors in key states within the 2020 election, Punchbowl reported.

Spokesmen for the select committee and the DOJ didn’t immediately reply to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Meadows and Eastman are each mentioned greater than 100 times in a 154-page executive summary of the select committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, rebel. On that day, a violent mob of then-President Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol and disrupted the peaceful transfer of power to Biden, whose 2020 election victory Trump has never acknowledged as legitimate.

The summary was released Monday, because the committee referred Trump to the DOJ for multiple crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the federal government and inciting or assisting an rebel. The committee’s final report is about to come back out Wednesday.

Some members of the committee have already confirmed that the panel has provided some materials to the DOJ before they’re set to be released publicly later this week.

“We have actually given some transcripts already to the Department of Justice and have for the — through the last month,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., noted Monday on CNN. “We will likely be releasing transcripts starting Wednesday.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland named Smith as special counsel last month to analyze potential illegal interference with the transfer of presidential power following the 2020 election, or Congress’ efforts to verify Biden’s electoral victory on Jan. 6, 2021. Smith can also be tasked with investigating potential violations related to Trump’s removal of tons of of documents from the White House, including some bearing classified markings.