Trump: Indicted At Last for January 6th

Late yesterday the federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., investigating the January 6, 2021, coup attempt by Donald Trump and his co-conspirators handed down four indictments against Der Trumpenfuhrer.  It is what many decent Americans not brainwashed by Fox News, a/k/a Faux News, and its imitators or lusting for power in order to inflict their hate and prejudices on the nation have long awaited and in some cases feared would never come.   It is both a sad and an inspiring development for the democracy and America.  It is sad because never before did voters put anyone as corrupt and dangerous in the White House and/or someone so willing to destroy democracy in order to stoke his own ego and avoid accountability. It is an inspiring day in that it demonstrates that perhaps America's legal system will do what far too many Americans refuse to do as they remain cult-like followers of a truly evil and morally bankrupt individual: hold Trump accountable for his crimes.  Trump will lie and claim he is being persecuted - and seek more money contributions from the stupid and those who only care about their hatreds and prejudices - and frighteningly many Republicans will repeat the lies and further prostitute themselves to Trump.   But just maybe a sizable majority of voters will vow to make sure Trump never, ever darkens the door of the White House again.  A column in the Washington Post by a former Republican looks at yesterday's developments.  Here are highlights: 

Some Americans thought this day would never arrive. Many doubted that Attorney General Merrick Garland possessed the boldness and wherewithal to overcome historically risk-averse career staff at the Justice Department. He certainly did not move swiftly to investigate the effort to concoct phony electoral college slates after the 2020 presidential election.

But now, in one swift blow, special counsel Jack Smith has defended the rule of law — and made history.

On Tuesday, a federal grand jury indicted former president Donald Trump for his role in the 2021 Capitol insurrection. Those concerned with the fate of our democracy should appreciate the magnitude of the charges laid out in the indictment. All Americans should savor a sense of relief that the Justice Department is seeking to hold everyone involved in the coup plot accountable under the law.

Trump has spent his life evading responsibility for his conduct; within the space of a few months, he has been indicted three times in criminal court and held liable in civil court for defaming and sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll.

[T]he four-count indictment contains no exotic charges. Trump is charged under Title 18, Section 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States; Section 1512, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; and Section 241, conspiracy to “to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person … in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Six co-conspirators were not named but they appear to include former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark and attorneys John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, who assisted in the phony elector scheme. Smith identified seven states in which the fake elector scheme operated.

In describing the campaign to pressure Mike Pence to change the election results, the indictment contains specific allegations regarding the then-vice president’s pushback, including his conversations with Trump. Pence apparently gave Smith critical testimony. While not alleging that Trump instigated violence, the indictment asserts he “exploited” it. . . . It documents, as did the House Jan. 6 committee, Trump’s inflammatory tweet claiming Pence didn’t have the “courage to do what should have been done.”

If special counsel Smith can prove that Trump and one or more other people conspired to block the counting of ballots, that could serve as a stand-alone Section 241 charge in an indictment. If not its own charge, then the scheme to stop the counting of ballots can form the basis for the initial part of the overall charged scheme to deprive Americans’ voting rights in the 2020 presidential election.” In the indictment, Smith does not specify which people were deprived of the right to have their vote counted, but one can assume it includes those in states that Trump tried to steal.

Smith did not overcharge nor clutter the indictment with repetitive charges. He appears intent on keeping the case relatively simple. Simple does not mean unserious, however. Choosing not to bring the dicey charge of sedition or conspiracy to commit sedition, Smith nevertheless captures the enormity of the crime — the assault on our democracy.

Now, unlike in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, Trump will face a judge he did not appoint, in a circuit that has shown little to no sympathy for his delaying tactics or absurd claims of privilege. The court will likely move expeditiously, although it remains an open question whether a trial can start, let alone finish, before Election Day in 2024.

Three overriding issues should not be lost in the legal weeds.

For starters, if Trump ran for president under the mistaken notion it would protect him from prosecution, it was a colossal miscalculation; instead, his decision forced Garland’s hand, drawing into the case an incorruptible, aggressive and determined prosecutor who, in roughly eight months on the job, filed two mammoth criminal cases against the former president. Had Trump not declared his candidacy, the Justice Department might still be “working it way up the chain” in its Jan. 6 investigation. Trump remains his own worst enemy.

Second, Republicans have a fundamental choice: Do they nominate a thrice-indicted criminal defendant who sought to overthrow our democracy? General election voters will not avert their eyes from the blizzard of facts or the seriousness of the charges. If Republicans proceed with Trump, they become the party of insurrection and deceit. The GOP will be stained for a very long time by sticking by Trump’s side.

Third, Smith has done his job — faster and more completely than even his most ardent supporters expected. The judge and jury will be expected to follow their oaths. But it is up to the voters to make certain an abjectly unfit character never assumes power. There is no shirking that obligation, no matter what the results in court.

All praise certainly goes to Smith for halting the hemming, hawing and general lack of initiative evident in the Justice Department’s early approach to investigating Trump. . . . . It’s all the more remarkable since he had to bring a separate case based on the Espionage Act.

But before memory fades, we cannot forget the work of the House Jan. 6 committee, its staff and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who pushed forward by appointing two admirable Republicans to the committee after Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) yanked his members.

It was the Jan. 6 committee that first presented the country with a coherent view of the coup, brought forth witnesses such as former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson and scores of other Republicans to describe the coup plotting; showed how Trump and his cohorts endangered the lives of poll workers; and explained that Trump knew militia men were armed when he egged them on to the Capitol. They put all the pieces together in a compelling narrative.

After the entire country saw evidence of the conspiracy set forth by the committee, the Justice Department would have been hard pressed to justify declining to prosecute. In short, the Jan. 6 committee made this week’s jaw-dropping developments possible. Democracy is in their debt.