The December 6, 2016 Insurrection by the Executed Ex-President and Its Consequences for the Judgment of Cheney

These unprecedented referrals suggest that Mr. Trump, who as president took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not only violated that oath, but also committed a series of specifically indictable crimes. One of the referrals that is the most important and surprising is for the crime of inciting an insurrection and its consequences, which include barring the former president from holding political office.

It was at a moment when he was engaged in a clash with the Biden administration, the courts and facts, that Trump made his clearest hint yet of a White House run.

Trump’s current prominence on the political scene was already highly unusual. One-term presidents typically fade fairly fast into history. It is a testament to his firm hold on the GOP that he is still a player nearly two years after losing reelection. There are growing doubts about whether a lot of the legal and political scandals can convince some GOP primary voters to support Trump in the primary.

The refusal of many of Cheney’s fellow Republicans to even acknowledge the ex-president’s conduct suggests that her effective sacrifice of her career in the House GOP may be in vain. Certainly, there was little sense during the compelling hearings that the public was as transfixed with this act of accountability as it was, for instance, with the Senate Watergate hearings in the 1970s that helped lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Today’s polarized times and the power of conservative media to distort what really happened on January 6 may help explain this dichotomy.

Those controversies also show that given the open legal and political loops involving the ex-President, a potential 2024 presidential campaign rooted in his claims of political persecution could create even more upheaval than his four years in office.

While fierce differences are emerging between Democrats and Republicans over policy on abortion, foreign policy and crime in the upcoming midterms, it is probably more important for voters to focus on the past of the ex- President.

The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection subpoenaed Trump for information. More and more Trump aides are being brought before a grand jury as the Justice Department gets closer to a fateful decision over whether to charge the ex-President over the mob riot.

Kari Lake, the Ex-President and the Tax Fraud Trump Organization: Are they really running their own gubernatorial campaign?

In Arizona, one of the ex-President’s favorite candidates, GOP gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake – a serial spreader of voter fraud falsehoods – is again raising doubts about the election system. “I’m afraid that it probably is not going to be completely fair,” Lake told AZTV7 on Sunday.

The presidency may become a bit less self-serving and focused on the legal needs of the democracy in which they are elected. The House January 6 committee voted to file criminal referrals against Trump, which is consistent with old expectations for our democracy, and would set a valuable precedent for the nation.

The Republicans will likely expand their presence in Washington after the elections. Scores of Trump-endorsed candidates are running on a platform of his 2020 election fraud falsehoods, raising questions over whether they will accept results should they lose their races in just over two weeks.

The trial of the Trump Organization for tax fraud is going to start in Manhattan on Monday. The ex- President has not been personally charged but the trial could impact his business empire and prompt fresh claims from him that he is being persecuted for political reasons that could inject yet another contentious element into election season. The New York Attorney General hasPeriodontally sued the Trump Organization for $250 million, saying they ran tax and insurance fraud schemes to enrich themselves for years.

Democrats have made their own attempts to return Trump to the political spotlight. Some campaigns are trying to scare suburban voters by warning pro- Trump candidates they are a danger to democracy and President Joe Biden equates MAGA followers with fascists.

What Will the Ex-President Do if he’s Running for a Second White House Term? The Case of Trump and the Capitol Insurrection

But raging inflation and spikes in gasoline prices appear to be a far more potent concern before voters head to the polls, which could spell bad news for the party in power in Washington.

The ex-president told people at a Texas rally on Saturday that he would probably have to run for president again.

“It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves,” Cheney told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“This isn’t going to be, you know, his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that that became. This is an issue that is far too serious.

Each committee hearing was a piece in a broad case against Trump. The panel sought to show he lost the 2020 election, that he knew that Biden won and that there was not significant fraud but that he sought to overturn the result by harassing election workers and inducing state GOP officials to steal votes.

One question hanging over the congressional committee, however, is whether the higher standard of evidence required by a court could lead prosecutors to believe it would be hard to convict the former president. The strength of the case against Trump can be hard to judge, as the witnesses weren’t subject to the kind of challenge and cross-examination seen in court.

The former President is not likely to approve of video testimony because it would be more difficult for him to control how his testimony is used.

This could all become academic anyway. A new House majority could sweep away the January 6 committee since it is one of the first acts and the issue would likely drag on for months since a Trump legal challenge to the subpoena.

If there is evidence of a crime, Garland has to make a choice: do the national interests outweigh the politics of prosecuting a former President in a politically charged environment or do the consequences make the country torn apart.

A decision to charge an ex-president running for a non-consecutive second White House term would undoubtedly cause a firestorm. He should not be spared from accountability if there is evidence of a crime.

Will Donald Trump be charged with a crime, after the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection left a fateful question hanging over Washington and the presidential campaign?

On Monday, at the final public hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee, Representative Bennie Thompson said that any attempt to overturn the legitimate results of an American election, impede the peaceful transfer of power or foment an insurrection must never be allowed to happen again. The criminal referrals made by the committee were related to Donald Trump, who had hatched a scheme to rig the election to benefit himself, according to Representative Jamie Raskin.

The idea of sending criminal referrals to the DOJ could potentially be seen as furthering the perception of political vendettas after January 6.

The panel is set to be wiped out by a GOP majority in the House next month, with scores of lawmakers who voted not to certify the last presidential election still in office.

But before then, the panel is expected to release its final report on Wednesday. There could be a lot of embarrassment for the ex-president when the House Ways and Means Committee discusses what to do with his tax returns on Tuesday.

In its highly produced hearings, the committee – with its seven Democrats and two Republicans who split with their own party to take part – painted scenes of horrific violence and intense efforts by Trump to steal Joe Biden’s presidency.

A Capitol Police officer told how she had slipped on spilled blood during the melee caused when the ex-president’s mob smashed its way into the Capitol. A mother and daughter who worked as election workers in Georgia, were threatened by Giuliani after he accused them of vote stealing. Rusty Bowers, the outgoing Republican speaker of the Arizona state House, testified that Trump’s calls for him to meddle with the election were “foreign to my very being.”

Republicans who testified about his assault on the Constitution, like Cassidy Hutchinson, were often those who were with Trump in the West Wing. The ex-aide to the chief of staff had an opinion. It was un-American. The Capitol building got defaced over a lie.

The panel believes that Trump was in the center of an election-stealing conspiracy, even though a retired federal judge warned in June of a danger to American democracy. With that in mind, it would be surprising if the 45th president, who earned his second impeachment over the insurrection, was not referred to the DOJ for the possibility of criminal action.

The committee contended that Trump helped to plan an elaborate scheme to change the results of the election in Congress. When those efforts failed, after then-Vice President Mike Pence refused to wield powers he did not have, the committee argued that Trump called a mob to Washington and incited a vicious attack on the Capitol. Then, committee members argued, his inaction as the violence raged amounted to desecrating his sworn duty to protect Congress, the Constitution and the rule of law.

“This is someone who in multiple ways tried to pressure state officials to find votes that didn’t exist. This is someone who tried to interfere with a joint session, even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol,” Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the January 6 committee, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. I am not sure what it is if that is not a crime.

How Donald Cheney was hounded by committee referrals in the January 6 attack, and how Congress didn’t respond to his accusation

I wonder if an impression will be created that Trump is being hounded by any referrals more than two years after he left office.

Americans at a time of high inflation and a once-in-a-century Pandemic are wondering whether they really care about the events that rattled US democracy almost two years ago.

In July, Cheney spoke to the committee at a public hearing. “Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?”

While many of President Donald Trump’s election candidates were rejected by the American people, their false claims of election fraud suggesting some desire to protect American democracy.

It is impossible to quantify how the committee’s work affected voters in November. Even as the ex-president started a new campaign to portray the probes into his conduct as politically motivated persecution, it kept up its evidence of Trump’s insurrection in the news. This is especially valuable because some pro-Trump Republicans want to distort what happened in the Capitol attack.

A huge investigation was done by the committee. Huge amount of evidence, many witnesses being identified, according to a former federal prosecutor.

“I think it’s the detail that accompanies the referrals themselves and the report that will give a roadmap to DOJ. DOJ is playing catch-up, but that detail could be very helpful to them, and they will have a lot of pressure on them as well.

Future generations can judge the determination of the panel members, especially the two Republicans, as well as the bravery of witnesses who tried to save democracy, if nothing else.

GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who, like Cheney, served on the committee in defiance of his party and will not be returning to Congress, explained his actions in seeking to hold Trump to account in his retirement speech on the House floor last week.

“Unfortunately we now live in a world where a lie is Trump’s truth, where democracy is being challenged by authoritarianism,” the Illinois Republican said.

“If we, America’s elected leaders, do not search within ourselves for a way out, I fear that this great experiment will fall into the ash heap of history.”

He is a professor in the history department and the LBJ school and holds the Mack Brown chair in leadership in global affairs. He is the author and editor of eleven books, most recently, “Civil War By Other Means: America’s Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy.” He is the co-host of the podcast, “This is Democracy.” His own views are expressed here. Read more opinion on CNN.

The Charges of a President and a Vice President: Law-Breaking Apologies to the founders of the United States

The founders of our republic would approve. In creating the executive branch of the US government in the second part of the Constitution, the founders made sure that the president was deferential to the law not the other way around. The highest law of the land must be preserved, protected and defended by the president.

The founders did not anticipate a man of Trump’s destructiveness, but they set up a system to hold leaders accountable. The same things as other citizens can be accomplished when law-breaking by elected officials is prosecuted. It sets an example and promotes law-abiding behavior.

As the president performs his duties, it is often impractical to try him for potential legal violations because of the limits of judicial access to confidential information. The Constitution, however, presumes that the president, like all other citizens, will ultimately be accountable for any crimes, even if that requires waiting until he leaves office. Impeachment and removal from office are political responses to misconduct, but they do not preclude other forms of legal accountability.

Whether it’s former South African President Jacob Zuma or Taiwan’s former President Chen Shui-bian or Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Najib Razak — across the globe, former leaders are regularly prosecuted, convicted and given time behind bars for offenses stemming from corrupt business dealings, elections hijinks, or misdeeds that occurred while serving in office.

Over the past 200 years, there have been a number of cases where the president and vice president have been charged with crimes. In 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr was indicted in two states – New York and New Jersey – for murdering Alexander Hamilton in their infamous duel. Burr was indicted again in 1807, after leaving office, for organizing an insurrection against the United States.

In 1973, Vice President Spiro Agnew pleaded guilty to a felony charge for tax evasion, after trying to claim that he and the president were immune from such prosecution. His immunity was denied by federal courts, and Agnew ultimately resigned.

Nixon largely retreated from the public eye, as did Agnew and Burr. Although justified, prosecution of these former executive officials did not seem necessary to prevent them from committing more crimes. Nixon’s pardon, in particular, remained controversial, but it did not threaten the security of American democracy.

Will Trump ever face accountability for his role in the December 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol? A challenge to the judiciary and how Congress dealt with it

The same cannot be said for Trump. The evidence is overwhelming that he used the office of the presidency to try to overturn the 2020 election. He laid the groundwork for the violent January 6, 2021, attack on Congress to prevent the certification of the new president. He also took classified documents and then refused to return them under subpoena. The claims were substantiated by the Justice Department and the congressional investigation.

Whether or not Trump is indicted or found guilty, his actions are potentially criminal and demand judicial attention, in no small part because of their grave consequences for our democracy.

Unlike Nixon, Trump has not retreated or changed his behavior since leaving office. He has called for the termination of the Constitution and all election laws to put him back into power. He has praised those who attended the January 6 rally preceding the attack on the US Capitol. He claims to have the right to take government property and declassify confidential documents if he thinks about it. It seems Trump’s penchant for flouting norms, rules and regulations has only grown since he left the White House for Mar-a-Lago.

Using the powers of the justice system to hold bad actors to account will strengthen Americans’ faith in the justice system. And, as presaged in the opening line of our own Constitution, it will put our nation one step closer to becoming a more perfect union.

Jamie Raskin, the Democratic member of the committee who introduced the criminal referrals, said that our system of justice is not a system of jail time for foot soldiers.

The most urgent framing of a question about Trump that has been asked many times is: Will he ever face accountability for his rule-breaking conduct? The question is especially acute given that the norm crushed this time almost toppled US democracy.

The issues of accountability and foot soldiers is at the center of the comment about the mob that trashed the Capitol. Trump repeatedly avoided paying political and legal prices as an example of a ringleader who skips past judgement after he won the White House. Robert Muller found information showing that Donald Trump may have interfered with the Russia investigation, but he did not find evidence that the then-president committed crimes. Most Republicans in the Senate found no reason to convict Trump when he was impeached twice.

The panel said Trump should be charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements and giving aid or comfort to an insurrection. The committee stated in a summary that the cause of January 6 was Donald Trump. … None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”

The DOJ is investigating the events surrounding the insurrection and will have to make a decision on whether the case stands up in a court of law or not.

Andrew McCabe, former deputy FBI director, told CNN that the Justice Department has to go much further on every single person touched by the committee.

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said that Trump’s lawyers would “go through every word of this, that is their job, that is their right. They are going to look for any inconsistencies, they are going to look for any basis to attack the potential witnesses against them, preferably in court. That is what defense lawyers do.”

One particular complication for the Justice Department is that the nature of the insurrection and the involvement of a former president makes this an unprecedented case. A good defense team could try and muddy the issue of whether or not there were fraud in the election by suggesting that Trump meant it when he said he was not going to contest it. They could also claim that in telling supporters to “fight like hell” to save their country, he was simply exercising his constitutional rights to free speech. Jack Smith and Garland would have to make a decision on whether or not to prosecute before they considered the thrust of Trump’s defense.

Rod Rosenstein, who served as deputy attorney general in the Trump Justice Department, told CNN’s Erin Burnett that the most serious referral – accusing Trump of giving aid and comfort to an insurrection – would likely come up against a First Amendment defense.

“The Department would have to prove that the president’s comments were directed at inciting imminent lawless action. They need to prove he intended for the mob to engage in violent activity. That would be a hurdle to prosecuting him under that charge,” Rosenstein said.

It is unlikely that prosecutors at the DOJ will be influenced by the opinion of the select committee, albeit one that is backed up by a mountain of evidence, that the former president should be indicted. The panel has amassed so much testimony that it could be useful to the DOJ, even though prosecutors have been seeking its testimony and other materials for months.

With the DOJ already facing the enormous pressure of investigating Trump, which escalated when he declared his 2024 bid last month, it’s hard to say that Monday’s events will add to the burden. But at the same time, if Garland were to disregard multiple referrals, he would be certain to infuriate Democrats who already think the department has been slow to pursue Trump.

One thing is for sure. The DOJ is going against time. With the 2024 campaign season underway and given the time it takes to mount a prosecution, Smith doesn’t have the luxury of years. This may help explain signs that his investigative pace is cranking up, following the recent reappearance of two ex-White House counsels before the grand jury.

One way that the committee’s graphic depiction of Trump’s aberrant behavior could help Smith is by preparing the public – at least the portion that does not simply defend Trump whatever he does – for the grave possibility that a former president could go on trial. fragile developing world democracies and dictatorships are more similar to attempted coups.

“No man who would behave that way at that moment in time can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again. He is unfit for any office,” the Wyoming Republican said on Monday.

In making these referrals, the committee was certainly considering the past as well. Representative Liz Cheney spoke of her great-great-grandfather, Samuel Fletcher Cheney, who was a member of the Ohio Infantry during the Civil War. After the war, he marched with his fellow soldiers in the Grand Review of the Armies, passing President Andrew Johnson in the reviewing stand. She might have said that Johnson, the president of the United States, would soon be impeached. Like Donald Trump. Like Donald Trump, he was acquitted.

Charges against Boris Johnson and the Stormy Daniels Indictment: How a Senator in New York Can Expend a Crime against Mr. Trump

Johnson went home to Tennessee after the election of Grant in 1868. It would be difficult since he was able to unite moderate and radical Republicans with Democrats and former secessionists, making it very difficult for those who wanted nothing more to do with him. But it wasn’t illegal.

A new book from the legal pundit and former prosecutor claims that federal prosecutors in New York considered bringing charges against President Donald Trump after he left office regarding his role in the Stormy Daniels cover. The indictment for Michael Cohen made no secret about Mr. Trump being a beneficiary of the crime. He is likely to be criminally liable for it since he was the leader of the scheme.

The prosecutors were of the opinion that campaign finance violations were more important than prosecuting the former president. (Perhaps now Mr. Bragg will pick up where they left off.)

Similarly, the special counsel Robert Mueller documented and collected evidence around possible obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump while in office, and the Mueller report states that this evidence prevented investigators “from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred.” No prosecutor has tried to pursue this material now that he is no longer in office. Everyone seems afraid to be the first to make the first move and break the Nixon precedent. Other democracies like France, Israel and South Korea are willing to bring former and current leaders to justice. In January, the British police fined Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for not wearing a seatbelt, and his predecessor Boris Johnson was fined for hosting parties that violated the country’s Covid lockdown rules. What better way to make clear the fundamental principle that laws apply to everyone than to bring a minor charge against a powerful figure?

We can prosecute state governors. Governors from Connecticut, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Ohio have all been indicted for state or federal criminal charges. Over the last decade, more than a dozen members of Congress have faced criminal charges. Democracy chugs along just fine.

The commander in chief is a rare case, and the bar and evidence necessary to prosecute a former president should be high. The court papers in the Stormy Daniels case implicated Mr. Trump. If he’d been anyone else, he almost certainly would have faced felony charges. How is it better for our democracy for him to escape a charge that prosecutors would levy against anyone else?

Are Heads of State in Israel, France and South Korea prosecuted or jailed? An Overview from Axios at the New York Times

Editor’s Note: Arick has been a producer and senior media adviser to many New York City politicians. He advises corporations on communications and political strategies in North America, Africa and Latin America. Follow him on Twitter @ArickWierson. Read more opinion on CNN.

Over the past week, some commentators have appeared gobsmacked by the unprecedented nature of this turn of events for the twice-impeached former president.

Since 2000, in over 75 countries around the world, according to Axios research, heads of state who left office have been prosecuted or jailed — including in vibrant and strong democracies like Israel, France and South Korea.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been involved in a number of scandals over the last few years, while former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was released from prison after serving less than two-thirds of his fraud sentence.

Back in 2021, France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of illegal campaign financing and received a one-year jail sentence. And in that same year, former South Korean President Park Geun-hye was released from prison after serving nearly five years following a corruption conviction.

If the Manhattan District Attorney decides to prosecute Donald Trump in the matter relating to payments to Stormy Daniels, it will not be the end of the world.

Nor will the sky begin falling if Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis ends up charging the former president with racketeering and conspiracy charges related to Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 loss in the state. Special Counsel Jack Smith could possibly prosecute Trump for any number of alleged crimes he committed during and after his time in office. We don’t know if Trump will be charged in any of these investigations but if he is, American democracy will not only be OK, it will be stronger as a result.

In each of these cases, however, the president himself was spared prosecution, which ended up, over time, creating something of a mythos — entirely separate from the Constitution — that prosecuting or jailing a former president was overly divisive or unbecoming of the world’s most powerful nation.

But now it’s time for Americans to make peace with the fact that for every remarkable president that we have been fortunate to have leading us through times of war and uncertainty, occasionally, like any other country on earth, we will get a bad apple in the White House.