Tag: Capitol Insurrection

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Capitol Insurrection Crime Donald Trump Donald Trump Jr. Eric Trump

House 1/6 Committee Has Evidence Incriminating Donald Trump And His Sons: Report

The House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection is about to begin holding public hearings, and according to a reporter familiar with the what’s happening inside the committee, they will present evidence which incriminates former President Donald Trump and his two oldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric.

Appearing on MSNBC, Hugo Lowell of The Guardian noted that open hearings will allow the committee to lay out proof that Trump and members of his family directly coordinated with the insurrectionists:

“The Select Committee is unlikely, I think, to issue an interim report in the next few weeks and months, but what they are going to do is hold a series of televised public hearings where they want to show the American public what the committee has learned in its closed-door evidence gathering process to date.”

Lowell added that so far the Jan. 6 panel has interviewed about 300 people and obtained more than 30,000 documents, including emails and text messages which implicate former White House officials and others connected to the ex-president:

“Including, of course, Tump’s former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who turned over a series of really damning messages that seemed to incriminate the White House and Trump, and Trump’s sons, and Fox News hosts, and Republican members of Congress, so this is a really big deal. And this is going to feature large in how the committee moves forward. They’re still going to be doing investigations and evidence gathering on the side, but I think they’re going to really ramp up the pace and try and share with the American people what they’ve learned to date.”

The hearings will also increase pressure on the Justice Department, which can file criminal charges against anyone who violated federal law. And if attacking the seat of American government isn’t a crime, then what in the hell is?

 

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Capitol Insurrection Donald Trump Supreme Court

Former Prosecutor: The Supreme Court Isn’t Going To Shield Trump From The Jan. 6 Committee

Even though he’s already lost in two other federal courts, failed, one-term former President Donald Trump is hoping the U.S. Supreme Court (which has three justices appointed by the ex-president) will rule that he doesn’t have to turn over documents subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Will the high court shield Trump from the Jan. 6 committee? Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman doesn’t think so.

Appearing on CNN, Akerman was asked by host Paula Reid:

“With Nixon with Watergate, [the court] ordered him to hand over materials and other subpoena materials. We learned that Trump has lost twice now in federal court. There’s been a big debate will the Supreme Court even take up this case and, if they do, what will they rule? How do you see this playing out over the next couple weeks and months?”

Akerman responded:

“You’re right. There are two courts, lower courts, District Court, and Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, basically issued very extensive opinions turning Trump down on the issues that he’s raised. But ultimately, there are really two issues at play here: one is executive privilege. Trump is claiming that he has the right to assert executive privilege over the documents on January 6th. The problem with that argument is that the Supreme Court has already spoken to executive privilege back in 1974, when they ordered Nixon to produce his tapes.”

The former prosecutor then added:

“Privilege belongs to the government, to the republic. It doesn’t belong to the individual. It’s not like the privilege to not incriminate yourself under the Fifth Amendment, which is an individual privilege, and Joe Biden, the present president, already determined in a very extensive writing that these documents do not come with an executive privilege.

“The Supreme Court has basically been limited to diplomatic, military, and national security matters. It certainly doesn’t cover a plot against the government to overthrow its normal processes. So it’s very unlikely that Trump is going to succeed on that.”

Though he made it clear he wasn’t guaranteeing the Supreme Court will reject Trump’s appeal, Akerman noted:

“Both opinions, the lower court opinions basically pointed out that in the face of Joe Biden’s very detailed analysis as to why executive privilege does not apply and Trump has provided absolutely zero facts to explain why it does apply. So it’s very unlikely that that issue is really going to go anywhere.

“So when you take those two issues together, the executive privilege and the legislative purpose, and the fact that both courts have really extensively ruled on that, by all rights the Supreme Court should just deny the appeal and leave it at that.”

Those documents Trump is trying to keep hidden must be very incriminating. Otherwise, why would he be fighting so hard to make sure the committee doesn’t get them?

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Capitol Insurrection Congress

The January 6 Committee Is Closing In On Kevin McCarthy

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is now firmly in the crosshairs of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol insurrection, according to a report from ABC News.

McCarthy is being asked to sit for a voluntary interview with the committee:

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, invited House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Wednesday to sit for an interview with investigators.

“If he has information he wants to share with us, and is willing to voluntarily come in, I’m not taking the invitation off the table,” Thompson said in a phone interview with ABC News.

Earlier this week, McCarthy was asked if he would agree to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee, to which he replied:

“I don’t have anything to add. I have been very public, but I wouldn’t hide from anything.”

That led Chairman Thompson to note:

“If Leader McCarthy has nothing to hide, he can voluntarily come before the committee.”

However, Thompson also made it clear that he may send a formal request to McCarthy for him to appear before the panel. If McCarthy refuses, he could be subpoenaed, which would be problematic for the California Republican, who would be facing a criminal referral to the Justice Department if he ignores a subpoena.

McCarthy has admitted that he spoke with former President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, as CNN reported in February:

In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the US Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.

McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.

Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the then-President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.

The Jan. 6 committee has formally requested interviews with two members of Congress so far: Reps. Scott Perry, (R-PA) and Jim Jordan, (R-OH). Both have said they will not agree to be interviewed.

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Capitol Insurrection Congress Crime GOP

Republicans Panic As 1/6 Committee Says It Expects To Have Interim Report By Summer

The House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol insurrection plans to release an interim report on their findings by as soon as next summer, according to a senior aide who spoke with the Washington Post.

The Post reports:

“We want to tell it from start to finish over a series of weeks, where we can bring out the best witnesses in a way that makes the most sense. Our legacy piece and final product will be the select committee’s report.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who serves on the 1/6 committee, told CNN:

“I think we will want to for the hearings tell the whole story. Security at the Capitol, the intelligence leading up to the attacks, lack of intelligence, the role of social media, the former President’s role, the role of those around him, and tell it in an era fashion so the public knows exactly what’s going on.”

The next step in the hearings will be ones open to the public, which could be incredibly damaging for Republicans in the leadup to the 2022 midterm elections. The GOP is hoping to take control of the House and Senate, but revelations from the Jan. 6 committee could make voters less willing to cast a ballot for members of the party if they were involved in the attack on the Capitol.

Failed, one-term former President Donald Trump is said to be on the verge of a “meltdown” as he contemplates being referred to the Justice Department for his role in the Capitol riots, with Hugo Lowell of The Guardian noting:

“It’s increasingly becoming more likely because they are looking at criminal referrals for the former president. They’re still looking at Bannon and they’re still looking at Giuliani and [John] Eastman. These are the guys at the Willard that Trump called up on Jan. 5 and sought advice. There were multiple war rooms. There is one with Eastman, Giuliani, and Bannon and there was a separate one is where people like [Michael] Flynn and Roger Stone and Alex Jones. There was, like, a massive operation happening at the Willard.”

Lowell then added this regarding Trump:

“They spoke to [Mark] Meadows, he ultimately decided not to cooperate, and he did provide a trove of documents and communication and text messages which we have only seen a sliver of, and those are already quite damming, and Trump is in a bit of a meltdown, from what we understand, down in Mar-A-Lago.”

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Capitol Insurrection Crime Donald Trump Justice Department

Former Senator Lays Out How Merrick Garland Can Get A Grand Jury To Indict Trump For Jan. 6

With each day, we get more evidence and information that points directly to former President Donald Trump’s complicity in the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

But a larger question remains: Will Trump be referred for criminal charges by the Jan. 6 committee, and if so, what will the Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland do with such a referral?

Former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), who worked for years as a prosecutor before she ran for office, laid out a road map for Garland and the DOJ when it comes to indicting Trump, explaining what she thinks the AG should do regarding the ex-president.

During an appearance on MSNBC Monday, McCaskill told host Nicolle Wallace that federal prosecutors should walk a grand jury through Trump’s inaction for over three hours as he watched the rioting take place at the Capitol:

“We can go through and we can put the images at a specific time. And we can then fill in the text messages, the phone calls that were flooding the White House saying, get him to call them off. Now, what was he watching on TV at those moments? He was watching windows being broken. He was watching police officers being stabbed with flag poles. He was watching people hang from the balcony in the Senate. He was watching people carry around government property proudly like trophies in the capital. And, frankly, he was watching a confrontation at the door of the House where someone was killed.”

McCaskill added:

“Give me those facts. Give me those timelines, and give me a jury. I’m just telling you, any responsible leader would want to end the violence, not provoke it. That’s what he did that day, and that’s what this committee is going to layout. And that’s where Merrick Garland is either going to rise to the occasion or go down in infamy as one of the worst attorney generals in this country’s history.”

The case against Donald Trump, members of his administration, and some members of Congress could not possibly be more damning. If AG Garland doesn’t pursue criminal charges against each and every person who played a role in the Capitol insurrection, we can expect it to happen again.