The question arises on the Washington skyline after a series of hearings by the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol building that left five dead.
Moreover, the answer is urgent, as Trump, 76, has hinted at his desire to run for the White House again in 2024.
Who is the decision? This is primarily up to Attorney General Merrick Garland – and it will have consequences.
Possible accusations
During eight televised public hearings, the House of Representatives laid out a roadmap for the Justice Department to track: Trump knew he had lost the election — his advisers told him his legal efforts to counter the results would not come. To insist that Democrat Joe Biden “stole” his victory.
In this context, Trump lobbied election officials in Georgia to “find” the votes he needed to win and tried to force then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the election results at a congressional ceremony scheduled for January 6, 2021.
After that, Trump summoned his supporters to Washington and called on them to “fight everything”, making an incendiary speech near the White House. And wait: for three hours he watched on TV as his supporters violently attacked the Capitol in an attempt to prevent Biden’s victory from being endorsed.
Legal analysts say Trump could face at least two charges: “conspiracy to defraud the United States” for trying to overturn election results, and “obstruction of justice” in the attack on Capitol Hill. This latest charge is the most directed against hundreds of Trump supporters who have been arrested for storming the Capitol.
political consequences
In addition to the legal implications, an unprecedented lawsuit against a former president could cause a political earthquake in a country already suffering from brutal polarization between Democrats and Republicans.
“Indicting a past and possibly future opponent of the current president would be a disaster from which the nation will not soon recover,” says Jack Goldsmith, who was an assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration.
“Many will view this as political revenge,” Goldsmith says in an opinion piece in the New York Times.
Other scholars argue that a failure to impeach Trump would be just as damaging.
Attorney general
Attorney Garland was often asked about his intentions, but he avoided giving any evidence.
He recently said the January 6 investigation is the “most important” the Justice Department has ever done and that the priority is “doing the right thing.”
“We must hold accountable all those who committed crimes while trying to overturn a legitimate election,” Garland said. “No one is above the law,” he added.
Biden appointed Garlan, 69, as attorney general after he was denied a seat on the Supreme Court in 2016 by the Republican-controlled Senate.
Garland has a reputation for being cautious and meticulously fair, which has led to speculation that she could appoint a special prosecutor in the Trump case to avoid any hint of a conflict of interest.
Trump’s defense
Trump who was a target for Isolation In the House of Representatives due to the January 6 uprising and later acquitted by the Senate, he spent weeks protesting the commission of inquiry into the Capitol attack, which he accused of “playing justice.”
“They refused to allow political opponents to participate in this process and excluded all defense witnesses and anyone who immediately pointed out flaws in the report,” he said.
“The Democrats created the January 6 narrative to distract from the much larger and more important fact that the election was rigged and stolen,” he said.
William Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University, says prosecutors must prove not only that Trump was “guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but that he intended to break the law.”
“Not only did he block parliamentary proceedings, making it virtually impossible to count the votes and ratify the election, but that’s exactly what he intended to do,” Banks explains.
Banks says Trump’s lawyers can refute the allegations by presenting their client as a “patriot who really believes that the election was stolen and that he was trying to save the country.”
* Written by Chris Lefko and Charlotte Planteff / Agence France-Presse
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