Excellent and historically timely article here from TIME with this headline:
“Why
a Trump Criminal Referral by the January 6 Committee Would Be So Historic”
Short introduction from
the article which is truly a “must-read” article follows below (and formatted
to fit the blog):
Donald J. Trump is once
again poised to make history. No former president has ever been the subject of
a criminal referral from Congress, and that could change early next week.
The House January 6 Select Committee is set to hold its
final meeting on Monday (December 19), one in which it could vote on whether to
refer Trump to the DOJ for criminal prosecution for his involvement (1) in
trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and (2) encouraging the
violent attempt to stop the January 6 certification of President Joe Biden’s election
win.
The referral, and the documentation supporting it, would
then likely be handed to Special Counsel Jack Smith, who AG Merrick Garland
appointed last month to take
over criminal investigations involving Trump. It will be up to
Smith to ultimately decide whether to bring charges.
The expected vote to recommend prosecution of Trump would be a climax to the committee’s 18-month investigation, which involved over 1,000 interviews, the gathering of over a million documents, and 10 public hearings.
The committee is also
finalizing a public report that could be released as soon as next week. The
committee voted
in October to subpoena Trump to testify, but he refused to
appear.
The committee is also considering criminal referrals for
people who allegedly helped Trump try to overturn the election results by
creating fake slates of electors such as: former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark,
Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, attorney John Eastman,
and Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
The referrals would be largely symbolic, but experts say
that symbolism —and the evidence behind it — can still carry a lot of weight.
Debra Perlin, the policy director for Citizens forResponsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), argues that a criminal referral
of Trump would: “Frame a discussion around the deadly attack on the Capitol and
the events that preceded it. Symbols are hugely important. It can help prevent
and counteract misinformation and disinformation in the society that we thrive
in, because you can point to something authoritative, coming from Congress that
says that this happened, that there needs to be accountability, and that says
that criminal prosecution is the path that needs to be taken moving forward.”
Timothy Naftali presidential historian at NYU and a
former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum says: “If
the Committee votes to send criminal referrals, it means they figured that
writing a report wasn’t enough. Donald Trump’s the only president to have ever
tried to overturn an election. So, yea, this is a unique referral. It’s also a
unique moment in our history.”
FYI: Other
presidents have faced legal jeopardy from their actions while in office. But in
most of those cases, the threat of prosecution did not follow them after they
left office. In 1974, President
Gerald Ford famously issued a pardon to his predecessor, Richard
Nixon, clearing Nixon of any crimes that he might have committed
against the United States as President.
The pardon came after both
chambers of Congress had investigated Nixon’s involvement in widespread abuses
of power stemming from a break-in at the DNC offices in the Watergate complex
by men working for his re-election campaign.
No congressional committee ever issued a criminal referral
to the DOJ for Nixon. Rather, the reverse occurred, as Leon Jaworski, the
special prosecutor tasked with investigating Nixon, sent Congress a “roadmap” laying out evidence of criminal violations by Nixon.
Those violations included ones he was believed to have committed
including: (1) bribery, (2) perjury, and (3) obstruction of justice.
Because Nixon was a sitting president, Jaworski initially
believed it made more sense for Congress to move forward with impeachment
proceedings, rather than trying to prosecute him in a court of law.
Facing impeachment in the
House, cratering support from his fellow Republicans, and looming criminal
charges from a grand jury, Nixon resigned from office before facing
prosecution.
Timothy Naftali, the presidential historian at NYU mentioned
above said: “A criminal referral from Congress against Trump would send a
strong message to the former President and his allies ahead of the next
presidential election.”
He said it would say that the criminal referral to the cast of
characters who tried to overturn our Constitution in 2020, that the referrals
are a warning to people around Donald Trump today saying: “Don’t do this again.
Don’t try this again. There will be consequences.”
The
full article continues at the TIME story from here.
My 2 Cents: This excellent
article says it all and I think it speaks for the vast majority of all
Americans – or I certainly hope it does.
As usual, we shall see, so
stay tuned for the following week with the January 6 committee. It will be
dramatic for sure.
Thanks for stopping by.
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