EDITORIAL: Jan. 6 committee referral doesn’t change much

It is indeed significant that the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 incursion on the Capitol has formally recommended that the Department of Justice investigate Donald Trump for various crimes. It’s the first time in the country’s history that Congress has ever taken such action against a former president, although Bill Clinton, upon leaving office, did face fines and civil sanctions related to his grand jury prevarications.

But the practical effect of the criminal referral, as it is called, is minimal. And to believe the committee’s work was akin to a thorough law enforcement investigation into the events of that day is to ignore the obvious politics at play.

The committee references four potential crimes: obstructing an official proceeding, defrauding the United States, making false statements and assisting or aiding an insurrection. But is there anybody in Washington who thinks that Merrick Garland’s Justice Department wasn’t already looking at Mr. Trump actions on Jan. 6 following his election defeat? Mr. Garland sanctioned an FBI raid of the former president’s estate over allegations that he improperly carried off government documents when he left the White House. Of course, the DOJ is also scrutinizing more serious allegations against Mr. Trump stemming from the Capitol riots.

The “referral” may provide various talking heads with plenty of material, but it doesn’t change much. As columnist Jonah Goldberg noted in July, “A former DOJ official tells me you could probably wallpaper the Hoover building with Republican criminal referrals for Hillary Clinton alone.”

In addition, as Mr. Goldberg sensibly suggested, there is a major difference between the work of a congressional committee shrouded in politics and an actual impartial criminal probe conducted by law enforcement. While the Jan. 6 panel was investigating “profoundly serious stuff,” Mr. Goldberg wrote, it can’t be confused with the latter. “If the committee was actually a criminal proceeding,” he observed, “it would be a grotesque violation of due process and a farce. … It’s nothing like a Stalinist show trial, as critics bleat and moan, but neither is it an impartial inquiry of the sort required to determine criminal guilt — or even the sort required to launch a criminal investigation.”

Regardless, this exercise highlights how — despite progressive hysteria about the “end of democracy” — the nation’s constitutional guardrails continue to hold firm. If the Justice Department concludes that Mr. Trump’s behavior eventually warrants a slew of charges, the government will have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt in court. And Mr. Trump will enjoy the opportunity to mount a vigorous defense with the knowledge that he will be afforded protections under the Fifth and Sixth amendments.

The Jan. 6 committee’s referral will have little to do with it.