Capitol riot committee asks that Trump faces insurrection charges

A US congressional inquiry into last year's Capitol riot says ex-President Donald Trump should face criminal charges, including insurrection.

The Democratic-led committee voted unanimously for the justice department to prosecute Mr Trump.

The panel also aired a new clip of former Trump aide Hope Hicks about his refusal to admit election defeat.

Trump supporters stormed Congress on 6 January 2021, interrupting Joe Biden's certification as president.

Mr Trump denies any wrongdoing.

After spending around 18 months investigating the violent riot, the House of Representatives select committee recommended at their final meeting on Monday that Mr Trump face four charges:

The justice department - whose prosecutors are already considering whether to charge Mr Trump - does not have to follow a congressional committee's referral.

"An insurrection is a rebellion against the authority of the United States," said congressman Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who serves on the committee.

"It is a grave federal offence, anchored in the Constitution itself."

The panel's seven Democrats and two Republicans released their preliminary 161-page executive summary on Monday, accusing Mr Trump of a "multi-part conspiracy" to thwart the will of voters in the run-up to the Capitol riot and during the riot itself.

The full report, spanning hundreds of pages, is due to be released on Wednesday.

While the committee's actions are mostly symbolic, the chairman described the criminal referral as a "roadmap to justice".

On Monday, the panel also released a new video from their deposition with longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, who said she told Mr Trump that by continuing to make false claims about the election, he and his team were "damaging his legacy".

Mr Trump had shrugged off her concern, she said.

The then-Republican president, she testified, "said something along the lines of, 'Nobody will care about my legacy if I lose, so that won't matter.

"'The only thing that matters is winning.'"

The committee also criticised the president's eldest daughter Ivanka Trump, a former White House aide, for not being "forthcoming" with investigators.

Ms Trump and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany "displayed a lack of full recollection of certain issues, or were not otherwise as frank or direct" as other aides to Mr Trump, the report said.