U.S. House Jan. 6 committee to meet Dec. 19 for vote on referrals, report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold a public meeting on Dec. 19 to vote on its report and criminal referrals, before releasing the report on Dec. 21, the panel's chairman said on Tuesday.

Democratic U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson told reporters at the Capitol that the report would be posted online on Dec. 21.

The select committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans has spent more than a year investigating the attack on the Capitol by thousands of supporters of then-President Donald Trump, after Trump gave a fiery speech falsely claiming that his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden was the result of election fraud.

The panel has not said who might be referred for criminal charges or on what charges. A referral does not necessarily mean that the Justice Department, which is conducting its own investigation of the riot, will decide to file charges.

(This story has been refiled to fix typographical error in headline)

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Jonathan Oatis)