The image of former President Trump reflected on the screen at the hearing of the ‘1/6 Riot Special Committee’ hearing on July 12. ⓒAP Photo The biggest topic of discussion these days in Washington, D.C. is whether former President Donald Trump (76) will be prosecuted. He has already been impeached by the House of Representatives twice during his tenure, and if he is prosecuted, he will become the first president to be impeached and charged with the worst president in 246-year American history. It has been over a year and a half since the presidential election in the United States, but the aftermath of his election is still there. At the center of it all is President Trump. About 2,000 Trump supporters dissatisfied with the election results broke into the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the approval process was suspended due to confusion among members of the House and Senate who were trying to confirm the victory of Democratic nominee Joe Biden. The House of Representatives’ Special Committee on the 1/6 Riot (hereafter referred to as the Special Committee), which was launched in July last year to investigate the case of lawless riots at the time, recently held several hearings to find out that Trump incited armed supporters to obstruct Congressional approval. Specific allegations were confirmed, including In particular, at a public hearing on June 28, Cassidy Hutchinson, 25, an employee of the White House Secretariat at the time, made a ‘bomb remark’ that was a decisive blow to the indictment of former President Trump. On the day of January 6, she said that Trump, who was giving a speech saying “Fight to the end” to supporters at the plaza in front of the White House on the stage in front of the White House, tried to march to the Capitol with them. He said he was told he was trying to take the steering wheel from a security guard who was driving. In particular, White House Counsel Pat Sippeloni, who is closely aware of the situation at the time, is also known to have reconfirmed her testimony in a recent closed hearing. “It is clear from Hutchinson’s testimony that Trump was not only fully aware of the dangers of the riot and wanted to go to Capitol with the crowd,” said Daniel Goldman, a lawyer who served as legal adviser to Congress during Trump’s impeachment. predicted to be unavoidable. Prosecutors have charged more than 840 Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol on charges of rioting. In addition to these, the prosecution is expanding the scope of the investigation to include not only former President Trump, but also key sympathizers such as lawyers close to him and a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Justice who helped with his campaign to disobey the election. There are four major criminal charges against former President Trump that have been revealed so far. First, he is accused of obstructing Congress’s process of certifying the results of the election. In the November 3, 2020 presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden defeated Republican Trump by an overwhelming margin of 306 to 232 electoral votes. Trump supporters rioted while members of the House and Senate were attesting the election results at the Capitol on January 6th. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican member of the special committee and one of the representative anti-Trump figures, pointed to Trump as the mastermind behind it. The second allegation was a pre-conspiracy to overturn the election results. Trump and his lawyer, John Eastman, have come up with an early plan to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to deny congressional certification in the event of a presidential defeat. The committee believes there is “solid circumstantial evidence” that Biden forced the victorious state officials to deny the election results, even though the two men knew the act was illegal. Trump denies all accusations The third allegation is that Trump is linked to the intruders of the Capitol. The leaders of the far-right ‘Oath Keepers’ and ‘Proud Boys’ groups that led the riots at the time have already been charged with rioting. The special committee believes that Trump’s inflammatory speech to his supporters just before the January 6 riots had a decisive effect on their intrusion into the Capitol. Finally, there are allegations of former President Trump’s campaign to overturn his vote, claiming that his votes were stolen, resulting in fundraising fraud. The special committee claimed that Trump raised $250 million in the name of the “Election Advocacy Fund” after losing the election. On January 6, 2021, a Trump supporter and a congressional inspector were confronted by the Capitol break-in incident. ⓒAP Photo Former President Trump has denied all these allegations. He believed that he had stolen his real votes in the last presidential election, and he only actively defended the series of words and actions he made as a victim of the ‘thief election’. A Trump spokesperson dismissed Hutchinson’s testimony as “absolute and baseless allegations”. Can prosecutors prove that former President Trump had ‘criminal intent’ to obstruct Congressional certification even though he knew his actions were illegal? Trump claims that he believed he had been robbed of the real election, and that his disobedience to the election was an extension of that incident. He also asserts that his speech in front of the White House is flawless under the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression. If Trump sticks to such a defense strategy, it doesn’t seem easy to prove his ‘intention’. In addition, if the Special Committee recommends prosecuting former President Trump based on the allegations that have been proven so far, will the Justice Department be able to conduct an actual indictment? According to an ABC News poll, 58% of respondents supported the Trump prosecution. In particular, the approval rate of the indictment of nonpartisan respondents reached 62%. Public opinion favors indictment, but Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has the power to make the decision, says he will not be swayed by public opinion. “I will only judge based on the facts that have been revealed,” he said. There are reasons for Garland’s adherence to this highly neutral attitude. Although there is no legal problem in prosecuting him, it is because the political aftermath of the prosecution cannot be overlooked. The indictment of former President Trump is not just a legal matter, but a highly political one. If the indictment against Trump is imminent, the prevailing view is that President Biden will eventually intervene. Indeed, Trump’s influence on Republican and pro-Republican voters remains strong. According to a Yahoo News poll conducted in May, 50% of pro-Republican voters said they would most importantly judge whether Trump’s support for that candidate is the most important when voting in future elections. If former President Trump, who has influence over the pro-Republican voters, is prosecuted, the political aftermath will likely be formidable. Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuaid told NBC that “I think it’s right to charge Trump for his contempt for democracy, but if you indict him, you run the risk of nationwide protests and even civil war.”
ssn-general
Shall we sue Trump? Washington is in trouble
