More than two years after Donald Trump orchestrated a massive criminal conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including directing an armed and violent mob to attack the U.S. Capitol, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has still not indicted the former president.
The House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol (“Select Committee”) presented overwhelming evidence — nearly all from Trump loyalists — that Trump committed at least two federal crimes, as well as criminal offenses in the state of Georgia. Although the Select Committee cannot bring Trump to court, it can make a criminal referral. The DOJ is the only one who can decide whether to prosecute.
The committee proved that Trump was part of a multipronged scheme to falsely claim he was the winner of this election during eight public hearings. The conspiracy included spreading false information that the election had been stolen from him; trying to weaponize the DOJ in order to corroborate his false claims.
The Select Committee has developed evidence that Garland’s office should use in prosecuting Trump for Criminal conspiracy to defraud America Obstructure of Congress (The following summary is a detailed description of the evidence. Just Security’s “Criminal Evidence Tracker.”)
Criminal Conspiracy to Fraud the United States
Under federal statute Title 18 U.S. Code Section 371It is a criminal offense. “If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy.”
This crime requires that there be an agreement between two or more persons; (2) with the intent to obstruct lawful government functions; (3) using deceitful and dishonest means; (4) at least one conspirator must have committed an overt act in support of the conspiracy.
Agreement between two or more persons.
Trump entered into agreements with Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman and Mark Meadows to defraud United States.
Eastman, a former Chapman Law School dean, devised a plan to allow Pence to illegally reject the electoral vote count or delay it. U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter found that “there was likely an agreement between President Trump and Dr. Eastman to enact the plan articulated” in two memos that Eastman wrote.
Clark, a former DOJ official without criminal prosecutorial experience met Trump to discuss the appointment of Clark as acting attorney general. Clark wrote a letter to battleground state with unsupported claims of electoral irregularities and recommended that they appoint new slates. Trump decided against Clark’s appointment following threats of massive resignations at the DOJ.
Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, introduced Trump to Clark; emailed DOJ officials to investigate bogus fraud claims; encouraged state legislators to adopt Eastman’s plan; sent Pence’s staff a plan for him to reject electoral votes from battleground states; and organized and participated in Trump’s January 2, 2021, call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” enough votes to overturn the election results.
Specific intent to obstruct lawful government functions.
The legal function of the electoral vote count is one of the functions of the government. Eastman and Trump specifically intended to obstruct the count by applying repeated pressure on Pence to adopt Eastman’s scheme, which Eastman admitted, in Trump’s presence, was illegal. Trump and Clark specifically intended to interfere with the DOJ’s lawful function by drafting a letter with unsupported claims of election irregularities. Trump had planned to declare victory well in advance of the election day, regardless of who won.
After a meeting on December 19, 2020, in which plans for the military to seize voting machines were rejected, Trump tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th … Be there, will be wild!”
An email dated January 2, 2021 revealed that the march to Capitol Hill was premeditated. Trump was furious that weapons-wielding people were not allowed to the Capitol on January 6. This would have made his crowd appear smaller. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows, testified that she heard him say something to the effect that “I don’t effing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me, take the effing mags away, let my people in. They can March to the Capitol from here, let the people in, take the effing mags away.” Mags refer to magnetometers, or metal detectors.
Trump was advised against accompanying the mob to the Capitol because they were “going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told Hutchinson. Cipollone “was also worried that it would look like we were inciting a riot or encouraging a riot to erupt at the Capitol,” Hutchinson added.
Trump refused to leave the Capitol, but he insisted. He even tried to grab the steering wheel from a Secret Service agent who was driving him back to the White House and lunged at the agent’s throat.
Trump refused to stop the insurrection he instigated against the Capitol for more than three hours despite numerous requests from his staff, Republican leaders, and family members. He watched the violence unfold while he sat back. Fox NewsTrump called senators from the White House dining area, urging them to delay the certification of the electoral votes count. Trump only ordered his supporters to go home after the National Guard agents and FBI agents were summoned and questioned by Pence and congressional leaders.
Trump was told that the rioters were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” According to Meadows, Trump thought Pence deserved it and didn’t think they were doing anything wrong. Pence ran to safety as the rioters rushed within 40 feet of him. Members of his security team sent messages to their loved ones, afraid they would never see them again. But during the riot, Trump tweeted that Pence was a “coward” for not halting the vote count. Committee member Elaine Luria said, “He put a target on his own vice president’s back.”
Deceitful and dishonest means.
Trump and his closest allies knew or should know that he had lost the fair, free election. Attorney General Bill Barr; Acting AG Jeffrey Rosen; Acting Deputy AttorneyGeneral Richard Donoghue. Raffensperger and others also told him so.
Eastman knew that his scheme was against the Electoral Count Act, and admitted to the Supreme Court that it would be rejected unanimously. Clark and Trump wanted the DOJ’s letter to be sent to battleground states. It contained deceptive and unsupported claims. White House counsel told Trump and Clark that the letter was “a murder-suicide pact.” Meadows tried to get seven states to send deceptive and dishonest certificates saying that Trump had won those states.
Although Pence “never budged” in his position that he had no authority to reject electors or send them back to state legislatures, Trump dictated a January 5 statement saying he and Pence were in “total agreement” that Pence had such authority.
On election night, Trump declared that all vote counting should stop because he didn’t want “them to find” more ballots at 4:00 AM even though he had been told it would take a long time to count mail-in ballots.
Overt acts to further the conspiracy.
Trump and Eastman repeatedly pressured Pence to follow Eastman’s plan. Pence met the two conspirators twice in the Oval Office. Trump called Pence twice on January 6 and mocked him for “not [being] tough enough” to reject or delay the electoral count. Trump sent several tweets on January 6, one of which said, “All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN…”
Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and urged him to convene a special legislative session to appoint alternate electors; called Georgia’s chief elections investigator urging her to find voter fraud; and called Raffensperger demanding that he “find” enough votes for Trump to prevail over Biden.
Trump and Eastman called the state legislators to reverse the election. At Trump’s behest, Meadows executed a plan to send alternate slates of electors to Congress, declare false electors in battleground states, and submit fake electoral certificates with Trump as the winner.
Three weeks after the election, Trump called in to a Pennsylvania Senate hearing and stated that the “election has to be turned around.” On December 3, 2020, Eastman and Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani made similar appeals to officials in Georgia, and Eastman asked them to adopt an alternate slate of electors. Trump called the Arizona House Speaker at least twice, asking him to substitute Trump electors for Biden’s.
Between December 23 and January 3, 2021, Rosen testified, Trump “either called me or met with me virtually every day,” badgering him and the DOJ to pursue fraud allegations to support Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. Trump demanded that the DOJ write to the state legislatures, appoint an election fraud special counsel, file a lawsuit at the Supreme Court, and make public statements regarding allegations of election fraud.
Trump asked Donoghue to “just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to [Trump] and the Republican congressmen.” Since Donoghue had told Trump that the fraud allegations were false, Trump was asking Donoghue to lie publicly.
Meadows asked Rosen for a meeting with Giuliani, and another person who appeared in a YouTube clip discussing a false conspiracy theory. It claimed that an Italian defense contractor uploaded software onto a satellite, which then switched votes between Trump and Biden.
Trump tweeted the Big Lie after his attempt to have the military seize the voting machines was rejected. He summoned his supporters to D.C. In response, groups mobilized to organize their members to travel to Washington. Many tweets and online posts revealed that Trump’s supporters understood his tweet as a call for violence.
Trump made many references to Pence in his speech on January 6th, asking him to support the plan to delay or stop the vote count. Trump said, “We will see whether Mike Pence enters history as a truly great and courageous leader. All he has to do is refer the illegally submitted electoral votes back to the states that were given false and fraudulent information where they want to recertify.” Later, rioters hung a noose outside the Capitol and repeatedly chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Obstruction of Congress
Title 18 U.S. Code § 1512(c)(2) provides: “Whoever corruptly — … obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
Title 18 U.S. Code § 1512(k) adds: “Whoever conspires to commit any offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.”
This crime requires that (1) the person(s) involved in the corruption; (2) the specific intent to obstruct or influence or hinder; (3) an official proceeding;(4) two or more people enter into an agreement; (5) the conspirator knowingly and purposefully joined the conspiracy with knowledge of its unlawful purpose.
Corrupt actions by individuals.
Although Trump and his close allies knew or should have known that Trump lost the fair and free election, they pursued Eastman’s admittedly unlawful plan to overturn the election. Trump and Eastman called state legislators in an attempt to persuade them to submit false electoral lists. Trump and his attorneys pressed several state legislatures to decertify Biden electors’ slates and recertify Trump slates. Meadows, acting on Trump’s behalf, planned to send false slates of electors to Congress. Trump and Eastman pressured Pence to illegally suspend or delay the electoral counting.
Trump tried to get the DOJ seized voting machines, but Barr refused. Clark, on Trump’s behalf, drafted a letter for DOJ to send to battleground states with false claims of election irregularities and urging that states appoint new slates of electors. Trump asked Donoghue to “just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to [Trump] and the Republican congressmen.” Trump called Rosen every day for two weeks urging him to act on his fraud claims and pressuring him to appoint a special counsel on election fraud. Trump threatened to fire and replace the DOJ leadership if they refused to follow his plan to weaponize it. Trump backed down on his intention to replace Rosen with Clark after being told there would be “hundreds and hundreds” of DOJ leadership resignations if he fired Rosen.
Trump claimed fraud months before the election. In April 2020, Trump declared that fraud was the only way to lose the election. Trump’s campaign spent millions of dollars on media ads and television advertising that claimed the election results were fraudulent.
Trump and Giuliani stated that Arizona’s election was corrupted through fraud, including voting by undocumented immigrant and dead voters. Never was evidence of voter fraud in Arizona presented. Giuliani admitted, “we’ve got lots of theories. We just don’t have the evidence.” Eastman told the Arizona speaker of the House to “just do it and let the courts sort it out.”
Trump publicly claimed that “massive voter fraud” occurred in Georgia even though the vote was counted three times and the counts were “all remarkably close.” Trump and Giuliani asserted that election workers pulled out a “suitcase” with 18,000 fake ballots for Biden and counted them several times. All claims of election fraud were investigated and proven false. Trump called Raffensperger and pressured him to “find 11,780 votes” and when he refused, Trump threatened him with criminal prosecution.
On election night, on the advice of an “apparently inebriated” Giuliani, Trump claimed victory before all votes were counted despite opposition from his campaign officials.
Trump had advocated and later ratified the violence by calling on the Proud Boys in a presidential debate to “stand back and stand by” and urging his supporters to “fight like hell” on January 6.
Specific intent to obstruct or influence, or impede.
Eastman’s plan was designed to obstruct, influence and impede the electoral vote count. Trump and Eastman repeatedly pressed Pence to implement the plan. Clark wrote a false claim that the DOJ found irregularities in the election and recommended that states choose alternative slates. Meadows, on Trump’s behalf, specifically intended to impede and influence the vote count by advancing the scheme to send fake slates of electors to Congress.
Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and other white nationalist groups coordinated with Trump allies Roger Stone and Michael Flynn to get the mob to D.C. on Jan 6. Trump pardoned Flynn’s on November 25, and Stone on December 23, respectively.
Many members of the mob said they came to D.C. because “Trump asked us to come” to stop the election from being stolen. Trump didn’t want weapons screened to make the crowd look larger during his speech on Ellipse, even though he was informed that several rioters were carrying weapons. After he became convinced that Pence would not stop or delay the vote count, Trump added veiled threats against Pence to his speech on the Ellipse, telling the rioters to “fight like hell.” When he was told that the rioters were chatting, “Hang Mike Pence,” Trump replied, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. [Pence] deserves it.”
Trump did nothing for three hours to stop the violence at the Capitol and the attempt to hang Pence. Trump intended to block the Congressional vote count by allowing the mob to continue attacking the Capitol. When Trump finally told the rioters to go home, he called them “very special” “patriots” whom he claimed to “love.” Once again, Trump was endorsing the attempted insurrection.
Official proceeding.
Official proceedings include a congressional count of electoral votes.
Agreement.
U.S. District Judge Carter concluded that Trump and Eastman likely agreed to enact Eastman’s illegal plan to overturn the election. Trump and Clark agreed that they would pursue a strategy to reverse the election. Trump and Meadows agreed to advance Eastman’s plan and pressure Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to change the election results.
Knowingly and insinually joined the conspiracy.
Trump and his close associates knew or should know that he lost a free and fair election because Barr Rosen, Donoghue Raffensperger and others told him so.
Eastman admitted that his plan was illegal, and the Supreme Court would unanimously disapprove it. Trump and Eastman pushed Pence to implement the plan. Meadows, despite knowing the scheme was illegal and urging battleground states to send fake certificates declaring that Trump had won those states, Meadows continued.
Several House of Representatives including Matt Gaetz and Matt Gaetz sought presidential pardons for their efforts to overturn the election. Meadows and Giuliani expressed an interest in pardons. A pardon is equivalent to admitting guilt.
Georgia may soon face criminal charges against Donald Trump
Fulton County District Attorney Fani willis created a special grand jury in Georgia and subpoenaed prominent witnesses. criminal charges against Trump could be forthcoming in the fall. Trump’s January 2 call to Raffensperger demanding that he just “find 11,780 votes,” one more than Biden received in Georgia, will likely play a central role in Willis’s prosecution. Her investigation is extensive enough to suggest that she may be considering. charges of conspiracyTo commit racketeering or election fraud.
The Select Committee’s formidable work provides a detailed roadmap for Garland to use to indict Trump for criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States and for obstruction of Congress. Garland suggests that there will be no federal indictment of TrumpBefore the November election.
Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney stated that Trump “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame.” As the Select Committee hearings revealed, Trump started his conspiracy well before January 6, and in advance of the November election. Trump set the flame and his supporters attacked Capitol, but he continued to support the insurrection by refusing stop the carnage as it unfolded. Fox News.
Judge Carter found that Trump and Eastman tried to undermine the election with actions amounting to “a coup in search of a legal theory.” They never found one because their coup was illegal.
Trump must be held accountable immediately for both federal and state crimes.
