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Former President Donald Trump likely gave the Department of Justice (DOJ) "sufficient evidence" to convict him in the January 6 investigation, according to Just Security, an online forum that provides analysis on law and rights.
Trump is being investigated for alleged involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building to stop the certification of Joe Biden's victory.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the investigation along with Trump's classified documents case in which the former president was recently indicted for allegedly mishandling top-secret information. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the 2020 election was "stolen" from him due to voter fraud, even though there is no evidence backing this claim.
Just Security, based at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University, released a model prosecution memo, also referred to as a "pros memo," predicting the federal charges that Smith might bring against Trump and assessing the evidence that has been presented throughout the course of the January 6 probe.
The memo was written by authors who have experience as federal prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers, among other legal experts.
"We conclude that the evidence likely now meets Department of Justice standards to commence a prosecution. We base that conclusion upon a stream of recent disclosures in court filings and in the press that have come on top of the findings of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (the 'Select Committee')," Just Security said in a brief posted Thursday on its website.
The organization listed a three-step plan that it said Trump followed in alleged attempts to overturn the election, and "concluded that there likely is sufficient evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction of Trump."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's media office via email for comment.
Just Security said that Trump implicated U.S. statutes that prohibit conspiracies to defraud the U.S. in the administration of elections. Trump allegedly violated those statutes per the first step in his three-step plan by working with his lawyers and others to carry out schemes to change election results by "creating fraudulent electoral certificates that were submitted to Congress."
"When all the other schemes failed, Trump and his lawyers ultimately concentrated on using the false electoral slates to obstruct the constitutionally mandated congressional certification of the election on January 6, implicating statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 1512, which prohibits obstruction of an official proceeding," the organization said.
"Their primary objective was to have [former] Vice President Mike Pence in his presiding role on that day either block Congress from recognizing Joe Biden's win at all or at least to delay the electoral count."
Trump's alleged third step, which Just Security described as "his last resort," was "triggering an insurrection" to throw Congress off course to delay the transfer of power from the Trump to the Biden administration.
"Evidentiary hurdles faced by the Select Committee have been overcome by Special Counsel Smith through the use of his more robust subpoena power and a series of court victories," the analysis said. "He has now taken testimony from two of the most important witnesses in the case, former Vice President Pence and Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and recently interviewed a third, Trump's [former] personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani."
Based on testimonies from former Trump allies and evidence presented in the case, the DOJ might soon internally release a pros memo of its own, assessing possible federal charges in the case against Trump and other "possible co-conspirators," Just Security predicted, adding that the potential memo will be highly confidential and "may never be publicly available."
Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly slammed the DOJ and federal agencies for conducting a "witch hunt" against him in the January 6 case. He previously wrote on Truth Social that he "did nothing wrong on Jan 6th" and called the Capitol riot peaceful and patriotic. Trump is currently leading in polls as he pursues the presidency next year, despite facing legal pressure after being indicted twice and becoming the subject of other state and federal probes.
About the writer
Fatma Khaled is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. politics, world ... Read more