1/6 hearings fuel the question: Did Trump commit a crime?
WASHINGTON — The House Jan. 6 committee has heard dramatic testimony from former White House aides and others about Donald Trump’s relentless efforts to overturn the 2020 election — and his encouragement of supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol bent on achieving his goal. But the big question remains: Was any of it criminal?
Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide in Trump’s White House, added fresh urgency to the question Tuesday as she delivered explosive new testimony about Trump’s actions before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. She said Trump was informed that there were armed protesters at his morning rally before he stood onstage and told them to “fight like hell” at the Capitol. Then he argued with his security detail, she said, trying to go with the crowd.
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Trump’s aides knew there could be legal consequences. Hutchinson said White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told her “we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump had gone to the Capitol that day as Congress was certifying President Joe Biden’s win. Cipollone said Trump could be exposing himself to obstruction of justice charges or defrauding the electoral count, she said.
On the heels of Hutchinson’s public testimony, the House committee on Wednesday issued a subpoena for Cipollone, saying in a letter that while he had provided an “informal interview” on April 13, his refusal to provide on-the-record testimony made their subpoena necessary.
The Justice Department has recently expanded its investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, targeting some of Trump’s allies in Washington and around the country who participated in his scheme to invalidate Biden’s victory. But prosecutors have not indicated whether they will bring a case against the former president.
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WHAT HAS THE EVIDENCE SHOWN?
Witnesses have testified that Trump was repeatedly advised by campaign aides and top government officials that he had lost the election to Biden and that his claims of widespread voter fraud were divorced from reality.
Yet he pressed ahead, shouting the false allegations that culminated in the riot at the Capitol.
Still in office, he leaned on the Justice Department to get government law enforcement officials to take up his cause. He pressured the states — asking Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” votes, for example — and Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the joint session of Congress that day.
Hutchinson testified that Trump said he wanted metal detectors removed from the area near where he was delivering a speech on Jan. 6. He said it did not matter to him if the supporters, who were to head to the Capitol, were carrying weapons because they were not there to hurt him.
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WERE ANY CRIMES COMMITTED BY TRUMP?
He hasn’t been charged, but legal experts believe the testimony, presuming it can be corroborated, does give prosecutors avenues to pursue.
Federal law, for instance, makes it a crime to incite, organize, encourage or promote a riot like the one that enveloped the Capitol. But that’s a high bar for prosecutors to clear. Trump’s exhortation to “fight like hell” could be construed as a more general call to action. He was acquitted by the Senate of an incitement charge in his impeachment trial after the insurrection.
Still, a federal judge in February, in rejecting a request by Trump to toss out conspiracy lawsuits from Democratic lawmakers and two Capitol Police officers, said Trump’s words “plausibly” led to the riot. And Hutchinson’s first-hand account of hearing Trump complain about metal detectors suggested he was aware that some supporters were capable of violence but brushed it off.
A more likely option for prosecution, said Jimmy Gurule, a former federal prosecutor who is a Notre Dame law professor, would be to pursue a case that Trump conspired to defraud the United States through his wide-ranging efforts to overturn the election and to obstruct the congressional proceeding at which the results were to be certified.
