The so-called January 6 Committee referred to the Department of Justice potential criminal charges committed during the course of the January 6 demonstration in Washington, DC; see BREAKING: January 6 Committee Refers Criminal Charges Against President Trump and Others. As was expected, President Trump figured prominently, including an evidence-free charge of “insurrection.” Because without “insurrection,” the January 6 Committee would have to admit to itself that it was a fraud perpetrated upon the nation and a colossal waste of time.
All of this, Politico assures us in a story headlined DOJ cares about the evidence, not the criminal referrals, was political theater. Now the steely-eyed defenders of Truth, Justice and the American Way at the Department of Justice will evaluate the findings.
The historic criminal referral the House Jan. 6 committee issued urging the Justice Department to pursue charges against President Donald Trump is unlikely to sway many minds among prosecutors already pursuing multiple investigations, former DOJ officials said.
Prosecutors are more interested in the thousands of pages of witness statements and other records gathered by the House panel over the past 15 months, current and former officials said.
“I’m sure the Attorney General will welcome any new evidence the committee sends over, but the authority to indict rests with the executive branch, not Congress,” said University of Baltimore Law School Dean Ronald Weich, a former DOJ liaison to Congress. “The decision of whether to bring criminal charges is solely within the purview of the Justice Department. I expect DOJ to respond courteously to the committee, but the referral will not change the outcome.”
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Still, complications await prosecutors in both big and small cases as a result of the new criminal referrals and other issues stemming from the House probe. Defense attorneys may resume their requests for delays to digest evidence newly disclosed by the congressional panel. And some could argue that any future prosecution of Trump or others is the result of undue pressure from Congress, although derailing charges on those grounds will be an uphill battle.
The Justice Department has taken a discerning approach to earlier referrals from the Jan. 6 panel. Although the committee asked prosecutors to bring contempt charges against four individuals for failing to testify to the panel — Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, longtime Trump political strategist Steve Bannon and Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro — the Justice Department only charged Bannon and Navarro with contempt. A jury found Bannon guilty in July and he was sentenced to four months in prison, but is free pending appeal. Navarro is set to go to trial next month.
The headline is both true and deceptive. The true part is that the referrals from the January 6 clown show will have no impact at Justice. They know the nature of the people on that committee and the proceedings, as well as the rest of us. No one in the federal bureaucracy is going to make a career-endangering move based on something produced by Jamie Raskin and Liz Cheney. Literally, no one in DC is that stupid. The deceptive part is the narrative that Justice is carefully evaluating the evidence before making a decision. If you believe that you’ve not been paying attention to how Merrick Garland’s Justice Department operates. It is a political hit squad for the Democrat party. Its actions are based solely upon political expediency. This is the bunch that raided Mar-a-Lago and allowed FBI agents to sniff their way through Melania Trump’s underwear drawer. These are the people who sent a SWAT team to serve a search warrant and then leaked bodycam footage showing the victim, former Justice official Jeffrey Clark, handcuffed in his boxer shorts just to humiliate him.
These are the people who invented the Gretchen Whitmer “kidnapping,” who employed at least 80 FBI agents (see How Many Former FBI Officials Are Working at Twitter? It’s Astonishing) to suppress Twitter posts damaging to Democrats, and who tracked down retirees to arrest them for essentially jaywalking at the US Capitol on January 6.
The referrals received from the January 6 Committee will only be the opening act. I don’t agree very often with any of the goobers who have such a feeling of inferiority that they appear on CNN, but this guy is right.
Donald Trump will be indicted on multiple counts based on the January 6 ruckus. A Democrat grand jury in Fulton County, GA, will indict him for his role in trying to change Georgia’s vote. A New York grand jury will indict him on issues surrounding the Trump Organization. In all cases, he will be tried by a rabidly Democrat jury, and he will be convicted. You can also bet that these trials will be timed to occur during the 2024 primary.