Former President Donald Trump likely gave the Department of Justice (DOJ) “sufficient evidence” to convict him in the January 6 investigation, according to Just Security, an online forum that provides law and rights analysis.
Trump is under investigation for alleged involvement in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the US Capitol building to stop the certification of Trump’s victory. Joe Biden.
Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the investigation along with the Trump classified documents case in which the former president was recently accused of allegedly mishandling top-secret information. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the 2020 election was “robbed” from him due to voter fraud, although there is no evidence to support this claim.
Just Security, based at New York University’s Reiss Center on Law and Security, published a sample indictment memorandumalso known as a “professional memo,” predicting the federal charges Smith might bring against Trump and assessing the evidence that has been presented throughout the January 6 investigation.
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The memo was written by authors who have experience as federal prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys, among other legal experts.
“We conclude that the evidence now likely meets Department of Justice standards for prosecuting. We base that conclusion on a series of recent disclosures in court documents and in the press that have added to the findings of the Justice Department’s Select Committee of Inquiry. House of Representatives”. the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol (the ‘Select Committee’),” Just Security said in a report posted Thursday on its website.
The organization listed a three-step plan it said Trump followed in alleged attempts to overturn the election, and “concluded there is likely sufficient evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction of Trump.”
news week contacted Trump’s media office by email for comment.
Just Security said Trump implicated US statutes that prohibit conspiracies to defraud the US in the administration of elections. Trump allegedly violated those statutes under the first step of his three-step plan by working with his attorneys and others to carry out schemes to change election results by “creating fraudulent voter certificates that were sent to Congress.”
“When all other schemes failed, Trump and his lawyers ultimately focused on using the fake voter rolls to obstruct Congress’s constitutional certification of the January 6 election, involving statutes such as 18 USC § 1512, which prohibits obstruction. of an official procedure,” the organization said.
“His main goal was to have [former] Vice President Mike Pence in his role as president that day is preventing Congress from recognizing Joe Biden’s victory or at least delaying the recount.”
Trump’s alleged third step, which Just Security described as “his last resort,” was to “trigger an insurrection” to sidetrack Congress and delay the transfer of power from the Trump administration to the Biden administration.
“The evidentiary hurdles facing the Select Committee have been overcome by Special Counsel Smith through the use of his strongest subpoena power and a series of court victories,” the analysis said. “He has now taken testimony from two of the most important witnesses in the case, former Vice President Pence and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, and recently interviewed a third, Trump’s representative. [former] personal attorney Rudy Giuliani”.
Based on the testimony of former Trump allies and the evidence presented in the case, the Justice Department may soon release a memo of its own internally for professionals, assessing possible federal charges in the case against Trump and other “potential co-conspirators,” he predicted. Just Security, adding that the potential memo will be highly confidential and “may never be publicly available.”
Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly criticized the DOJ and federal agencies for conducting a “witch hunt” against him in the January 6 case. He previously wrote on Truth Social that he “did nothing wrong on January 6” and called the Capitol riot peaceful and patriotic. Trump currently leads in the polls as he seeks the presidency next year, despite facing legal pressure after being indicted twice and being the subject of other state and federal investigations.