Jan. 6 panel has tough case to make on Trump criminal conspiracy
By Harper Neidig and Rebecca Beitsch - 03/05/22 05:58 AM EST
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol laid out a weighty claim this week: that former President Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy in his effort to unwind the 2020 election. But experts say that the panel has more work to do in order to convince federal prosecutors of the case against him.
The select committee has been signaling for months its interest in investigating whether the former president committed a crime, suggesting that it could go so far as sending a criminal referral to federal prosecutors, depending on the evidence it uncovers.
The filing this week marked a significant escalation in that effort, as the panel seeks to convince a federal judge that it should be allowed to obtain Trump campaign attorney John Eastman’s communications with the president and others. There’s little precedent for a congressional committee leveling accusations of criminal wrongdoing against a president in court.
It was something attorneys for Eastman himself noted in their responding brief: “Were this court to sustain the defendants’ claims, it may be the first formal finding of Presidential criminality by a federal court in United States history.”
But the select committee’s arguments this week were not aimed at convincing prosecutors to bring charges against Trump, which will require investigators to clear a burden of proof much weightier than the legal question in the Eastman case.more
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/596943-jan-6-panel-has-tough-case-to-make-on-trump-criminal-conspiracy
