For months, it was unclear whether the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, 2021, would be able to overcome his obstruction and penetrate his West Wing. Baffled critics complained that the Justice Department was not poking their inner circle to examine whether their efforts to steal the 2020 election violated the law. But now critics who, through two impeachments, a Russia investigation and multiple scandals, have come to share Trump’s belief that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York and get away with it feel that his impunity may be in doubt for the first time.
A whirlwind of days in Washington has changed perceptions of Trump’s political and legal danger related to his attempted coup after losing the 2020 election. Revelations that former White House aides have been brought before a grand jury have uncovered a Justice Department investigation. Public statements by Attorney General Merrick Garland that the department will go after those who tried to disrupt the legal transfer of power appear to spell trouble for Trump, as the House panel has shown that he was at the center of multiple Venn diagrams of plots. electoral.
It has also called into question the narrative of a timid attorney general who is wary of investigating a former president given the upheaval such an approach could unleash. This is especially the case since it emerged Wednesday that Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and a star witness for the committee’s televised Jan. 6 hearings, is cooperating with the Department of Defense’s parallel investigation. Justice.
This came a day after it emerged that two former senior advisers to then Vice President Mike Pence, Marc Short and Greg Jacob, had appeared before the grand jury. That development was the clearest indication yet that the Justice Department was looking at conduct directly related to Trump and his closest allies.
“I’m not one to say every time there’s a breaking news story or a development that’s hugely significant,” said Preet Bharara, a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York who is now a CNN legal analyst.
“That is. This is very significant,” Bharara told CNN’s Jake Tapper, predicting there would be a flurry of revelations in the coming days about other witnesses before the grand jury.
The department also obtained a second warrant to search the cell phone of conservative attorney John Eastman, a key figure in the plot to thwart Biden’s victory certification on January 6, 2021. It’s hard to tell how long the Department’s investigation will last. Justice over the post-election period has been developing with such high intensity. But at least there is now a strong impression that he is feeding off the progress made by the House select committee, a factor that would give that investigation greater legal and historical significance.
The House probe is also making progress
There are also new developments in the Chamber’s investigation. After expanding its investigation into the fall with the promise of more televised hearings, the select committee has been engaging with another key figure in the Trump administration, Mike Pompeo. To see also : Does Roe’s regime have a political silver lining for Democrats?. The former secretary of state and CIA director could appear for a closed-door deposition as soon as this week, multiple sources familiar with the committee’s schedule told CNN.
Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, told CNN over the weekend that the investigation was focusing on obtaining testimony from other members of Trump’s cabinet. In another blow to the former president, the House select committee has just released new audio of former Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller testifying under oath that no one had ordered National Guard troops to be ready to protect the United States Capitol on January 6.
The new evidence contradicts the claims of Trump and Meadows. And it also appears to hurt potential efforts by Republicans to use their own investigation if they take back the House in November to show that Trump protected Capitol Hill and that the real problem on Jan. 6 was not his mob attack, but security lapses. . lying on the doorstep of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The new open loops in Washington coincide with what was previously seen as the most serious legal threat to Trump, the special grand jury investigation in Georgia into the pressure exerted by the former president and his team to overturn a key state election.
The activity does not necessarily imply results in legal proceedings. The Justice Department investigation could end without indictments. Any criminal action he takes may not rise as high as Trump. And while the House select committee is clearly preparing a devastating catalog of Trump’s post-election conduct, its findings may not dent the former president’s ardent base that dismisses the investigations against him as politically biased.
There are also questions about whether the mountain of evidence the panel has unearthed showing the former president’s dereliction of duty in inciting a mob that ransacked the Capitol meets the evidentiary standard required for a judicial proceeding.
‘Severe legal peril’
And, of course, the former president has not been held accountable for much of his colorful business and political career, often when his enemies thought they had him cornered. This may interest you : Biden finds himself in a storm between Russia and its American prisoners.
Another CNN legal analyst, Norm Eisen, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, focused on Garland’s promise in an NBC News interview to go after anyone who attempts to “interfere with the lawful transfer of power from an administration to another.” “
“We haven’t heard these magic words before,” Eisen told CNN’s Ana Cabrera on Wednesday. He added that all the evidence suggested that there was one person who was in charge of trying to interfere with the legal transfer of power: the former commander-in-chief.
“I think the indicators really point to a serious legal danger for Donald Trump,” Eisen said.
The growing momentum in the parallel investigations comes as Trump ponders launching his potential 2024 White House bid. The former president will be sure to assert that any legal action against him is an illicit and politically motivated effort to prevent regain the presidency.
During a speech in Washington on Tuesday that closely resembled a soft campaign launch, the former president accused Democrats of arming the Justice Department against the opposition party. Garland has made it clear in recent days that the department would not be discouraged from its duty to the law if the person in question were a former president or running a presidential campaign.
While Democrats have long hoped that the web of investigations would eventually trip up Trump or damage him politically as he seeks a return to office, the Justice Department investigation especially suggests a tense political period could lie ahead. The possibility that a former president is under direct criminal investigation is serious. Under normal circumstances, it could be politically divisive. Given Trump’s temperament and willingness to break national unity and incite his supporters against democratic and judicial institutions, the impact of legal action against him could be ruinous in an internally polarized nation.
But it seems increasingly likely that the country will have to grapple with the question of whether a former president is legally accountable and the implications of not doing so.
“The country has been through a lot and I’m afraid it will have to go through some more,” Bharara said.
