Buried under the coverage of Russia's brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the January 6th. Congressional Investigation Committee on Wednesday released a report that somehow was both shocking and not surprising; it officially announced that there is sufficient evidence to believe that former president Donald Trump and his presidential lawyer, John Eastman, committed crimes when they actively conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. While the committee does not itself have the power to bring charges against Trump and Eastman, they can recommend that Attorney General Merrick Garland should do so. But will he?
On the one hand, the case against Eastman and Trump certainly seems strong; during the investigation the committee heard testimony from several former Trump administration members (including Jason Miller, his former Senior Campaign Advisor) that Trump was told, bluntly and openly, that he had lost the election. Trump's own Attorney General, William Barr, also publicly stated that there was no widespread evidence of fraud that could overturn the election. And Trump and Eastman still tried to push overturning the election in the courts. This even included a message from Eastman to then Vice President Mike Pence asking him to delay certifying the election after the January 6th uprising. Personally, I think that Trump committed a crime on that now infamous recorded phone call he had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he pleaded for Raffensperger to "find" him votes, even going so far as to hint that there might be legal repercussions for Raffensperger if he didn't. This was, it should be mentioned, in a state that had already had an official vote recount that showed no change in the outcome. Really, Trump's guilt seems obvious to me.
And it isn't just important for Trump to held accountable because he committed crimes, it also clearly sends a message to any future president that the kind of illegal games that Trump was playing will not be tolerated. The next president as corrupt and criminal as Trump might also be more organized and better equipped to overturn an election; we can't allow Trump's criminality to go unpunished. It would sent a terrible precedent.
On the other hand, any prosecution of a former Republican president by an Attorney General serving under a Democrat can be spun as just a partisan attack. Many Americans will see it as old news, assuming that the fact that Trump's scheming failed and that he eventually left the White House as punishment enough. It could also build up sympathy for him with his base, who will reflexively rush to his defense, and he will inevitably use the case as an excuse to raise funds for his legal defense. And proving these charges in a court of law may be difficult; in an odd twist, Trump's lawyers could contend that Trump didn't intend to deceive anyone because he really thought that he had won the election and that his actions were therefore done in the best interest of the country! This seems like an outright insanity defense, given how many people around Trump were telling him that he lost, but it just might work.
So Garland is left with a difficult choice: prosecute Trump in the hopes of getting a guilty verdict that will show that even the president is not above the law, even though he may be found not guilty and wind up in an even better place than before. Or, not prosecute him and allow Trump to walk away unpunished, which would greatly tarnish the office of the presidency much more than Richard Nixon ever did. Either way, I wouldn't want to be Merrick Garland right now.
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