As part of its investigation, the Justice Department is looking into a scheme to name fake presidential ballots for Trump in key battleground states he lost in the 2020 presidential election. The Justice Department is also looking into the actions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack, when a mob of the former president’s supporters, many of them armed, breached the Capitol building to prevent Congress from counting the state’s electoral votes and confirming President Biden’s victory.
Former Trump White House aides, including Marc Short, who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, have testified before a federal court investigating the attack, and US law enforcement agents have targeted former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and conservative attorney John Eastman as part of the investigation.
Trump, Eastman and Clark have not been charged with crimes or charged with wrongdoing, and the news that questions are being raised about the former president’s conduct does not suggest that Trump is the target of any federal investigation. The former president maintains that he did nothing wrong and continues to claim, without evidence, that the election was rigged.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the America First Policy Institute’s Agenda One Summit in Washington, DC, U.S., Tuesday, July 26, 2022. Trump’s remarks come after a House hearing that showed him standing by indifferently, even vindictively, for hours as a mob of his supporters battled police and chased lawmakers through the halls of the Capitol. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images Bloomberg
The probe by federal prosecutors is being conducted alongside a broad examination of the events surrounding Jan. 6 by a House select committee, which completed a round of eight public hearings last week, though more are expected.
During the hearings, the House panel charted what it described as Trump’s multifaceted campaign to stay in office, which included efforts to pressure Pence and state election officials to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and pressure the Supreme Court. Department officials to challenge the election result, culminating in a mob of his supporters violently descending on the Capitol.
However, the former president’s plans ultimately failed and Mr Biden’s victory was reaffirmed by Congress in the early hours of January 7.
Despite that failure, legal analysts and former prosecutors have honed in on two specific criminal charges they say could pose a legal threat to the former president: obstruction of an official process — the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to count electoral votes — and conspiracy to defraud the United States. The charges, experts said, will center on Trump’s alleged knowledge that the election was not rigged and his attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power despite knowing he lost.
Randall Eliason, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said the obstruction charges stemmed from both the scheme to name bogus electors to vote for Trump and Eastman’s strategy for Pence to unilaterally reject electoral votes from key states. during the Jan. 6 process or send them back to state legislatures.
The conspiracy to defraud the US, meanwhile, applies to corrupt efforts to obstruct a legitimate government function: the certification of election results by Congress on January 6.
“For any of the charges, they’re all going to be in the nature of a conspiracy charge,” Eliason, a law professor at George Washington University, told CBS News. A conspiracy charge requires a broader plan among co-defendants to commit a crime. “There is the potential for senior people like Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows to also be involved in the same case.”
Neither Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, nor Giuliani, his outside lawyer, have been charged with any crime. A House committee on Jan. 6 recommended that Meadows be charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena, but the Justice Department declined to charge him.
The Justice Department could also bring a riot conspiracy charge, Eliason said, although that would require prosecutors to show that Trump conspired to use violence “to prevent, obstruct or delay the execution of any law of United States”. Members of Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, two far-right extremist groups, were charged with conspiracy to riot for their roles in the January 6 attack.
Scott Fredericksen, a former federal prosecutor and independent counsel, said bringing charges such as conspiracy and sedition against the former president would require a “higher standard” of evidence for prosecutors, who would have to charge Trump and try to successfully convict him. at the trial.
Fredericksen believes the Justice Department should look into the “entire idea” of the so-called “Big Lie,” the claim Trump keeps pushing that the election was stolen. Prosecutors, he said, “should be able to prove pretty clearly that Trump knew very well that he lost the election, that this election was not stolen, and that this was a complete fabrication,” which, according to Fredericksen, would made Trump’s claims and later attempts to prevent the transfer of power a possible aspect of a criminal conspiracy.
“It’s not just January 6th,” Fredericksen told CBS News, “January 6th is, in some ways, the culmination.”
The testimony received by the committee sheds new light on the extent to which senior White House and administration officials, as well as campaign advisers, told Trump that his claims of widespread voter fraud were baseless and encouraged him to accept his defeat. , though their warnings did nothing. thwart Trump’s persistent efforts to block the transfer of power.
While Eliason said much of what the select committee has uncovered during its investigation so far is potentially relevant to a case brought against Trump, “criminal charges have a much higher burden of proof.”
“It has to be as airtight as possible, because it’s one thing to have testimony in a hearing that’s not contested, and another thing to have it in a trial where you’re cross-examined and defense witnesses,” he said. “That would be a very different kind of animal. You have to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt before an anonymous jury of 12.”
The unprecedented nature of such a case looms large over the possibility that Trump could face charges, as never before in US history has a former president been prosecuted by the Justice Department, which continues to tamper with another White House campaign.
A decision on whether to prosecute would be “the most consequential decision by any attorney general,” Eliason said, and raises “heavy” issues to consider, including whether such a move would involve the prosecution of government of the former president of the rival party.
Fredericksen agreed: “The whole idea of politics permeates this whole case. That’s why I think the Justice Department is extremely cautious and reluctant to investigate, let alone charge, a former president. … It’s never been done before because it will be perceived by a good part of the country as political persecution.”
“A prosecutor will stay away from charging any crime for which he uses some kind of political activity. The prosecutor is not going to touch that,” Fredericksen said, adding that the legal line between political acts and criminal acts is a complicated hurdle for prosecutors. “On the one hand, it could be political, but when it’s used with the idea of overthrowing the government, then that’s criminal.”
To avoid the perception of politicization, prosecutors should proceed as they would in any other criminal case by interviewing witnesses, securing cooperation and gathering as much evidence as possible, Fredericksen said.
“There is no special formula,” he added.
With each new revelation about the events surrounding January 6, Garland continued to be scrutinized for future actions by the Department of Justice. In an interview with NBC News that aired Tuesday, Garland stressed, as before, that the Justice Department “will bring to justice all those who were criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, which is the fundamental element of our democracy”.
But Garland’s promise to hold accountable anyone who broke the law, “at any level,” has done little to reassure some congressional Democrats and Trump critics, who are pushing for a speedy trial.
But Eliasson said the investigation is moving at a pace that should be expected given its “size and complexity” and noted that prosecutions stemming from Watergate and Enron spanned several years.
“The prosecutors are moving higher and higher up the ladder, closer and closer to the inner circle,” he said, referring to Short’s recent appearance before a grand jury. “We don’t know how this ends, that doesn’t mean the charges will be found to be warranted, it just means they’re doing what Garland said, starting with the rioters all the way down.”
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