With its microphone-dropping finale, the House committee investigating the U.S. Capitol uprising left a fateful question over Washington, Donald Trump and the 2024 presidential campaign: Will the ex-president be charged with a crime?
The committee said in its final public meeting on Monday that it would recommend that the Justice Department indict Trump on at least four counts carefully aligned to the panel’s catalog of violence, lies, sedition and dereliction of duty through Jan. 6, 2021. , specific laws.
“We don’t have a justice system where the foot soldiers go to jail and the masterminds and ringleaders get off free,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat on the committee, who made the dramatic public disclosure of his criminal case.
Despite presenting a so-called “road map to justice,” the panel does not have the power to try Trump and its decisions are not binding on the Justice Department. The DOJ has its own investigation and faces prosecutorial decisions that require a higher bar than the committee’s political games. The potential charges involved also have little precedent. And while both Attorney General Merrick Garland and the House committee have long argued that every American should receive equal justice, the gravity of the charge against a former president and current White House candidate who has already used violence as a political tool presents a dilemma for the department. is one of the most fatal in American history.
More broadly, the commission has now outlined the most pressing framework for the perennial question about Trump’s tumultuous career in business and politics: Will he ever be held accountable for his rule-breaking behavior? The question is especially acute, given that the norm that was broken this time almost brought down US democracy.
Trump posts response to January 6 criminal referral
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The issue of accountability gets to the heart of Raskin’s comments about the foot soldiers — as many of those involved in the Capitol trash haul have already been convicted and sentenced to prison. And since winning the White House in 2016, Trump has repeatedly avoided paying political and legal prices as the ultimate example of a “leader” who skips past judgments. For example, former special counsel Robert Mueller uncovered a trove of information that apparently showed Trump obstructed the Russia investigation, but chose not to conclude that the then-president committed any crimes. And Trump was the first president to be impeached twice, but both times most Senate Republicans found reasons not to impeach him.
The committee made its appeals during months of hearings in which it emerged that Trump knew he was losing to Joe Biden but went ahead with a series of vote-stealing plots anyway, then incited crowds that stormed the Capitol as lawmakers met to confirm Biden’s position. victory.
Specifically, the panel said Trump should be charged with aiding or abetting the insurgency, obstructing official proceedings, defrauding the United States and perjury. In a summary of its forthcoming final report, the committee stated: “The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump. … None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.
The committee’s televised hearings and summary released Monday paint a devastating picture of Trump’s assault on the constitutional order and the previously unbroken peaceful handovers of power from one president to another that are the essence of American democracy.
The Committee cites Section 1512(c)(2) of Title 18, USC, which makes it a felony or attempted obstruction, influence, or obstruction of an official proceeding. Based on what the panel presented, it appears that’s exactly what Trump did, with a cocktail of schemes apparently designed to thwart the will of voters ahead of a popular assault on Congress.
Yet Trump’s successful prosecution will require more than the detailed evidence presented to the House by seven Democrats and two Republicans.
The DOJ has its own investigation into the events surrounding the riot and must consider whether the case holds up in court as well as it appeared Monday afternoon in the committee room on Capitol Hill.
“The Department of Justice needs to go that much further with all of the people that were touched, interviewed and seen by the committee in some way,” former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said on CNN on Monday.
The nature of the committee, which involved little cross-examination of witnesses and used curated video clips to make its most poignant case, means it’s impossible to get a full picture of all the evidence. McCabe noted that some witnesses may have given statements favorable to Trump or exculpatory in some way, which his lawyers would certainly use in court.
Mulvaney: This criminal referral should scare Trump the most
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CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said Trump’s lawyers are “going through every word of it, it’s their job, it’s their right. They’re going to look for inconsistencies, look for grounds to attack potential witnesses, preferably in court. That’s what defense lawyers do.”
One particular complication for the Justice Department is that the nature of the riot and the involvement of a former president make it an unprecedented case. A good defense team could try to impeach by reframing Trump’s true intent and changing the question of what he honestly believed about whether or not the 2020 election was rigged. They may also argue that by telling supporters to “fight like hell” to save their country, he was simply exercising his constitutional rights to free speech. Special counsels Jack Smith and Garland should make sure before filing charges that there is a strong likelihood of a conviction if they choose to prosecute, after considering the likely thrust of Trump’s defense.
Rod Rosenstein, who served as Trump’s deputy attorney general in the Justice Department, told CNN’s Erin Burnett that the most serious turn — accusing Trump of aiding and abetting the insurgency — would likely run afoul of First Amendment protections.
“The department would have to prove that the president’s comments were aimed at inciting imminent unlawful activity. In other words, they would actually have to prove that he intended to engage in mob violence. That would be an obstacle to his prosecution,” Rosenstein said.
DOJ prosecutors are unlikely to be swayed by the select committee’s opinion, albeit one backed by a mountain of evidence that the former president should be charged. Still, the volume of testimony and other documents collected by the panel could be useful in the DOJ’s investigation, which is one of the reasons prosecutors have sought access to their testimony and other materials for months.
With the DOJ already facing enormous pressure in its investigation of Trump, which escalated when he announced his 2024 bid last month, it’s hard to say that Monday’s events will add to the burden. But while Garland would ignore multiple referrals, he would be sure to anger Democrats who already feel the department has been slow to go after Trump.
If the DOJ accepts one of the lesser charges, the political earthquake caused by the indictment may not be much different than if Smith believes Trump helped the uprising. America has never known a scenario where the administration of a sitting president impeaches a successor who is trying to overthrow him. And of course, if no case is filed on Jan. 6, Trump also faces indictment in another Justice Department investigation — his hoarding of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving office.
Former Trump insiders react to criminal charges against the former president
