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Opinion: Trump’s new admission about Jan. 6 should boost pressure on Garland

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
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By Greg Sargent
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Today at 10:09 a.m. EDT
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4 min

When Donald Trump sought to illicitly influence or disrupt the count of presidential electors — first through sustained pressure on numerous government officials, and then by inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — was he doing so “corruptly”?
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This question is central to whether Trump committed crimes amid his effort to overturn his election loss, including obstruction of an official proceeding, by relentlessly trying to impede or reverse the election’s conclusion in Congress.
In a new interview, Trump admits he fielded calls from Republican lawmakers while the violence raged, and blithely insists there was nothing wrong with those conversations. The admission — along with what’s known about these calls — cries out for further inquiries about his state of mind during them.
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Which should increase pressure on Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch a full investigation into whether Trump committed crimes related to Jan. 6.
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In his wide-ranging interview with The Post’s Josh Dawsey, Trump deflects blame for the rioting, says he wanted to march on the Capitol himself (his security detail intervened), and boasts about the crowd size.
Perhaps most important, Trump also discusses what happened during the violence:
Trump said that he remembered talking to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other people during that period. He said he had a “very good” memory but could not say exactly who he talked to that afternoon, or when.
“From the standpoint of telephone calls, I don’t remember getting very many,” he said, later adding, "Why would I care about who called me? If congressmen were calling me, what difference did it make? There was nothing secretive about it. There was no secret.”
A central feature of Trump’s corruption is that he sometimes confesses to it in public. In this circular wizardry, Trump’s conduct can’t possibly be corrupt if he’s so eager to cop to it openly.
Here Trump appears to blithely confirm he spoke to lawmakers during the insurrection, and suggests there was nothing wrong with those calls. Presto! All wrongdoing goes poof!
But let’s return to Trump’s Jan. 6 call with McCarthy. After McCarthy reportedly screamed at Trump to call off the rioters, Trump snarled: "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”
We also know Trump talked to Jordan on the morning of Jan. 6. Jordan helped plot the scheme by which Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, would delay the electoral count in Congress, allowing states to send new sham electors for Trump, flipping the result. What did Trump and Jordan say? What did Trump say to other lawmakers during the attack?
We need to know what happened on these calls. And this is why Trump’s admission should increase pressure on Garland to criminally investigate.
A big question is whether Trump came to see the raging violence as an instrumental weapon to help complete his procedural coup. Trump might have delayed calling off the rioters precisely in order to keep pressure on Pence to execute his scheme, and to pressure lawmakers into objecting to Joe Biden’s electors (as nearly 150 Republicans ended up doing).
Trump seemed to be saying something just like this to McCarthy in his trademark mobspeak.
Another question is whether this delay in calling off the rioters constituted a violation of his official duty. Still another is whether Trump’s demands of Pence constituted pressure on Pence to violate his official duty.
We also need to know whether Trump kept pressuring lawmakers to delay conclusion of the electoral count while the violence unfolded, and how. We already know Trump called at least one GOP senator and urged him to do exactly that during that period.
It’s not clear what, precisely, must be established to show Trump acted “corruptly” in subverting the official proceeding of the electoral count. But what happened on these calls could very well shed more light on Trump’s state of mind.
“The key is to understand Trump’s communications about whether he intended to disrupt the electoral count through the weaponization of the rioters,” New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, who has deeply researched the insurrection’s timeline, told me.
“It’s important to know whether Trump made statements pressuring members of Congress to delay certification while the violence was going on,” Goodman said. “It could satisfy a key element of the criminal statute, which requires prosecutors to prove he was corruptly motivated in his actions.”
Here it’s crucial to note that McCarthy, Jordan and others with direct knowledge of Trump’s Jan. 6 state of mind are refusing cooperation with the House committee examining these events.
But the Justice Department could try to compel disclosure of those calls. “His acknowledgment that the calls took place is an open invitation to the Justice Department to investigate,” Goodman told me.
Goodman noted the vast disconnect between Trump’s “statement that there’s nothing to hide” about the calls and the refusal of Republicans to disclose what happened on them, a disconnect that “places significant pressure on the department to follow up.”
Remember, if the department investigates, that doesn’t automatically mean charges: It’s merely probing whether charges are warranted, and whether it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that in obstructing the electoral count, he did so “corruptly.”
Garland could be investigating already, or alternatively, he might offer legitimate reasons for not investigating. We’ll see. But let’s be clear: Without an investigation, we might never fully learn what happened on those calls at all.

 
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There's trump telling us how good of a memory has, but couldn't recall who he talked to that afternoon. Reminds me of the 35 or so time he couldn't recall questions in the Mueller Report. He's starting to remind me of slow donnie. I've heard he's been losing it for the last few years.
 
There's trump telling us how good of a memory has, but couldn't recall who he talked to that afternoon. Reminds me of the 35 or so time he couldn't recall questions in the Mueller Report. He's starting to remind me of slow donnie. I've heard he's been losing it for the last few years.
He is just bad at lying.
 
I'm a liberal dem but I've given up all hope. Garland reminds me of Eric Holder, in the sense that he's doing diddly squat and will do diddly. Not to mention both the Northern and Southern District for Manhattan have basically given up on the Trumps. It's good to be a criminal grifter.
 
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I'm a liberal dem but I've given up all hope. Garland reminds me of Eric Holder, in the sense that he's doing diddly squat and will do diddly. Not to mention both the Northern and Southern District for Manhattan have basically given up on the Trumps. It's good to be a criminal grifter.
 
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"illicitly influence" - that would be illegal influence - where's charging of a crime?
 
Merrick Garland is doing and acting the way an Attorney General should act. He's doing fine, and has 2 1/2 years to bring them all to justice.
 
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Merrick Garland is doing and acting the way an Attorney General should act. He's doing fine, and has 2 1/2 years to bring them all to justice.
Yeah while bringing all the lib tards who looted and destroyed cities...right....right...
 
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