California Rep. Adam Schiff says the progress of the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and that of a Georgia district attorney's probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election should give the Justice Department "a new sense of urgency" in its own inquiry.
Schiff, a Los Angeles Democrat, told KCBS Radio's Bret Burkhart and Margie Shafer during an interview on Friday afternoon that the House committee and Fulton County District Attorney's respective investigations into former President Donald Trump's involvement in the Capitol attack and attempted interference in Georgia's election results.
"They have not pursued, I think, with urgency these other multiple lines of effort to overturn the election, or followed the evidence where it led to the former president,” Schiff said. "It is very unusual for Congress to be so far ahead of the Justice Department in a complex investigation, so unusual for a local district attorney's office, like the one in Fulton County, Georgia, to be so far ahead of the Justice Department. And I hope they will give it a new sense of urgency."
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The House committee on Thursday held its final televised hearing until September, which included live testimony from a pair of former Trump White House staffers. Schiff said the hearing showed Trump "wouldn't lift a finger" from "the comfort of the dining room of the White House" as the Capitol attack unfolded because the rioters "were doing what he wanted" and "trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power" so he could remain president.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, meanwhile, has subpoenaed a number of Trump allies – including Rudy Giuliani and South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, who accepted his earlier this week – and informed 16 Georgia Republicans who served as "fake electors" that they could face charges. The "fake electors" falsely claimed that they were "duly elected and qualified" electors after President Joe Biden's electors certified his win in the state.
Facing criticism that his department has mishandled its investigation and calls from congressional Democrats to charge Trump, Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters earlier this week that its investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election is the “most wide-ranging” and “most important” in the department’s history.
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"There is a lot of speculation about what the Justice Department is doing, what's it not doing, what our theories are and what our theories aren't, and there will continue to be that speculation," the attorney general said Wednesday. "That's because a central tenet of the way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenet of the rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in the public."
Schiff said the House Jan. 6 committee "will be presenting the new information that we're receiving" when televised hearings resume in September, "as well as working on our report and legislation to protect the country going forward."
"We continue to have people come forward," Schiff said. "And I think when people see the courage … of the witnesses that we presented last night, it encourages other people to come forward."
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