Any doubts that Trump will face criminal charges for Jan. 6?
Liz Cheney might be onto something with criminal charges for Trump, legal experts say.................In recent days, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming has drawn attention with public remarks that directly addressed Trump's potential criminal culpability in connection with the Capitol siege.
Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the House committee investigating January 6, called attention to a federal statute making it illegal to obstruct an official proceeding. The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke up about Trump's legal liability as the panel took steps to hold his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in contempt of Congress for ceasing cooperation with lawmakers' probe.
"Mr. Meadows' testimony will bear on a key question in front of this Committee: Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress's official proceeding to count electoral votes?" Cheney said. "Mr. Meadows' testimony will inform our legislative judgments on those issues."
In those remarks, legal experts saw a clear reference to a charge the the Justice Department has already brought against hundreds of January 6 defendants: "corruptly obstructing an official proceeding." It is the statute that could be relevant for any prosecution of Trump if evidence emerges that he planned or was aware of the violence that unfolded on January 6.
"It all depends on the facts. If the people who stormed the Capitol can be prosecuted for obstructing a congressional proceeding, if he played a role in that, then he's equally liable — whether it's instigating it, aiding and abetting it, planning it," said Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor and now a professor at the George Washington University Law School.
"But they have to show he had some kind of role as opposed to: He sees it happen, sits back and enjoys it, but doesn't do anything. They have to show that he played some role in causing it, not that the riot went out of control and he just gleefully watched it happen," Eliason added............
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-criminal-prosecution-charges-liz-cheney-january-6-obstruction-congress-2021-12
