The Washington Post broke the story last night that the Department of Justice is investigating Trump’s role in the failed coup of January 6 and presenting evidence and testimony to a grand jury.
The Justice Department is investigating President Donald Trump’s actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury — including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence — have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers, and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021; his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election; and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers about fake electors and sending electors back to the states, the people said. Some of the questions focused directly on the extent of Trump’s involvement in the fake-elector effort led by his outside lawyers, including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, these people said.
In addition, Justice Department investigators in April received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, according to two people familiar with the matter. That effort is another indicator of how expansive the Jan. 6 probe had become, well before the high-profile, televised House hearings in June and July on the subject….
The revelations raise the stakes of an already politically fraught probe involving a former president, still central to his party’s fortunes,who has survived previous investigations and two impeachments. Long before the Jan. 6 investigation, Trump spent years railing against the Justice Department and the FBI; the investigation moving closer to him will probably intensify that antagonism.
Many elements of the sprawling Jan. 6 criminal investigation have remained under wraps. But in recent weeks the public pace of the work has increased, with a fresh round of subpoenas, search warrants and interviews. Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, and lawyer, Greg Jacob, appeared before the grand jury in downtown Washington in recent days, according to the people familiar with the investigation. Both men declined to comment.
The Justice Department efforts are separate from the inquiry underway by the House committee, which has sought to portray Trump as responsible for inciting the Capitol riot and for being derelict in his duty for refusing to stop it. Both Short and Jacob have testified before the committee, telling lawmakers that Pence resisted Trump’s attempts to enlist him in the cause…
No former president has ever been charged with a crime in the country’s history. In cases when investigators found evidence suggesting a president engaged in criminal conduct, as with Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton, investigators and successive administrations concluded it was better to grant immunity or forgo prosecution. One goal was to avoid appearing to use government power to punish political enemies and assure the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed that the Jan. 6 investigation will follow the facts wherever they lead and said that no one is exempt or above scrutiny, while refusing to divulge information outside of court filings.
Garland told NBC News in a Tuesday interview that the department pursues justice “without fear or favor. We intend to hold everyone, anyone, who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6th, for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable — that’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.”
I have a subscription to this paper. For those of you stuck behind the paywall, I gifted the article for anyone with the following link:
https://wapo.st/3OBXaO8
Thanks!
Justice is fickle in the U.S.- Law and Crime, Jul. 8, 2022, “Rep. Matt Gaetz ‘Wingman’…”
Matt Gaetz is trending on Twitter because his scorn and ridicule for a woman who opposes restrictions on abortion (“who would impregnate a woman who looks like a thumb?”, he said at the Turning Points conference) have raised over $100,000 for her pro-abortion group. She thanked him.
A possibility-
Gaetz may have been emboldened to escalate his verbal expressions of misogyny because he’s been told he’s not going to be charged in the trafficking case.
That from the guy who cant get a woman to sleep with him so has go pay an underaged girl.
Even the adult women apparently won’t sleep with him for money.
About as pathetic as it Gaetz.
Gaetz will get a slap on the wrist (if that)
In Florida, even serial pedophiles like Epstein get off easy.
AND… Every Congressman and Governor and state AG and candidates who have spewed the same rhetoric about this MANUFACTURED LIE IS AN ACCOMPLICE! (media…please stop calling it a big lie – that cheapens it)..
There’s likely agreement that Garland is reluctant to file charges against those at the top of the food chain (similar to the 2nd district court of N.Y.?).
From the perspective of historical interest, the charges against Trump related to the insurrection may be of note. Justice for the powerful is very, very slow. Trump will be dead from natural causes or have age-related dementia before there are any potential consequences from possible charges?
Great. No doubt the Department of Just Us will conclude its investigation by July of 2076, just in time for the tercentennial.
Being president or being an ex-president means you are granted a get-out-of-jail card or a never-ever-going-to-jail card, no matter what crime is committed. A president would have to butcher 300 children with a machete on the White House lawn in broad daylight for that president to be taken into custody. Nixon had to resign but was never brought to justice, he was humiliated but never had to serve time. The most we could hope for would be that Trump would not run in 2024. I would be happy if Trump were confined to his massive estate in FL. He would never go to a regular prison because of the risk of his assassination by fellow inmates, not that that is even remotely possible.
After the lawn incident that you describe, it’s certain that Trump’s cabinet would continue to have confidence in him.
Investigating Trump?
Wouldn’t that mean Trump is a target ?
Is Trump a target of the DOJ?
He is watching the detectives (in Congress)
There is something very curious about the Washington Post report.
Grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret and though a witness may reveal information, an attorney is forbidden by law from doing so .
But it’s not likely that an individual witness or even just a few witnesses would be privy to all the information in the Washington Post report.
So whence — from whom — did the information come?
For example, how would a grand jury witness know that “Justice Department investigators in April received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows”?
In fact, how would anyone outside the Justice Department know about such things?
Are the “two people familiar with the matter ” referred to in the Post report part of the DOJ?
Is Garland concerned that someone in his department might be
leaking information about the grand jury procedings?
There is a good reason for the law (Federal Rule of criminal procedure 6e) that holds that attorneys and others involved with grand jury procedings must not disclose a matter occurring before the grand jury. Among other things, It protects witnesses and potential witnesses from tampering, harassment and possibly worse.
It is worth pointing out that the same DOJ who is tasked with ensuring that Rule 6e is enforced has an interest in getting across the idea that they are pursuing Trump.
It is at least possible that those could be in conflict with one another.