Trump’s legal jeopardy about the January 6 insurrection is growing but experts say attorney general must move carefully
The attorney general, Merrick Garland, is facing more political pressure to move faster and expand the US Department of Justice’s investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack and charge Donald Trump and some of his former top aides.
With mounting evidence from the January 6 House panel, court rulings and news reports that Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy in his aggressive drive to thwart Joe Biden’s election win in 2020, Garland and his staff face an almost unique decision: whether to charge a former US president.
Ex-justice officials caution, however, that while there’s growing evidence of criminal conduct by Trump to obstruct Congress from certifying Biden’s win on January 6 and defraud the government, building a strong case to prove Trump’s corrupt intent – a necessary element to convict him – probably requires more evidence and time.
In an important speech in January this year, Garland said he would hold “all January 6 perpetrators, at any level” accountable, if they were present at the Capitol that day or not, who were responsible for this “assault on our democracy”, which suggested to some ex-prosecutors that Trump and some allies were in his sights.
But rising pressures on Garland to move faster with a clearer focus on Trump and his top allies have come from Democrats on the House panel investigating the Capitol attack.
Those concerns were...
A front-page article with the byline of veteran New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof is the latest poisonous example of what I call the NGO “halo effect.” Headlined “The Silence That Mee...