Jan 6 riots hearing: How Attorney General Merrick Garland could spell trouble for Donald Trump
Over the last year, the House select committee has carried out a rigorous investigation into January 6 US Capitol riot. The committee has interviewed hundreds of witnesses and pored over thousands of hours of video footage and more than 100,000 pages of documents. The members of the committee investigating the Capitol riot said Sunday, June 12, that they have uncovered enough evidence for the Justice Department to consider an unprecedented criminal indictment against former President Donald Trump for seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“I would like to see the Justice Department investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity on the part of Donald Trump,” said Rep Adam Schiff, D-Calif, a committee member who also leads the House Intelligence Committee. “There are certain actions, parts of these different lines of effort to overturn the election that I don’t see evidence the Justice Department is investigating.”
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The committee announced that Bill Stepien, Trump's former campaign manager is one of the witnesses to testify at the public hearing on Monday, June 13, that will uncover Trump's effort to spread false claims about the stolen election that instigated the seditious conspiracy. Stepien was summoned for his public testimony by the committee. Stepien is now a top campaign adviser to the Trump-endorsed House candidate in Wyoming's Republican primary, Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Rep Liz Cheney, the committee's vice-chair. A Trump spokesman, Taylor Budowich, suggested that the committee's decision to call Stepien was politically motivated.
Lawmakers indicated that their most important audience member throughout the hearing would be Attorney General Merrick Garland, as he will decide whether or not Justice Department can and should prosecute Trump. “Once the evidence is accumulated by the Justice Department, it needs to make a decision about whether it can prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt the president’s guilt or anyone else’s,” Schiff said. “But they need to be investigated if there’s credible evidence, which I think there is.”
Garland is leading the Justice Department as it conducts its own, separate investigation of the attack on the Capitol. Earlier in April, Garland said it was his goal to keep the Justice Department free of partisan influence after years in which former President Trump repeatedly sought to use the agency to prosecute rivals and overturn the 2020 election results. But he is facing pressure from members of both parties over his handling of the riot probe. Garland further assured that the Justice Department will prosecute those involved “at all levels.” “The only pressure I feel, and the only pressure that our line prosecutors feel, is to do the right thing,” he added.
Garland has not specified whether he would be willing to prosecute, which would be unprecedented and may be complicated in a political election season in which Trump has openly flirted with the idea of running for president again. No president or ex-president has ever been indicted. Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974 as he faced impeachment and a likely grand jury indictment on charges of bribery, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice.
Legal experts have said a Justice Department prosecution of Trump over the riot could set an uneasy precedent in which an administration of one party could more routinely go after the former president of another. "We will follow the facts wherever they lead,” Garland said in his speech at Harvard University’s commencement ceremony last month.
Other additional evidence will be presented in the hearing this week to demonstrate Trump and some of his advisers' involvement in the massive effort to spread misinformation, pressured the Justice Department to embrace his false claims and urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject state electors and block the vote certification on January 6, 2021, Democrats said.
The panel will also focus on the millions of dollars Trump's team brought in fundraising in the run-up to January 6, according to a committee aide who insisted on anonymity to discuss the details.
The committee launched its highly-anticipated hearing last week on June 9 evening to provide evidence against Trump for his effort to overturn President Joe Biden's victory during the 2020 presidential election. Some Republicans have called the House select committee's investigation politically driven and have argued those charged are being treated too harshly. Democrats have complained the Justice Department is moving too slowly to investigate and prosecute people involved in the planning of the rally that led to the riot, including Trump and some of his associates.