Trump Cries Foul at Inquiry
Terry H. Schwadron
Dec. 31, 2021
Donald Trump made it clear again this week that he sees the House Jan, 6 Committee as illegitimate because it might recommend criminal charges against him.
That the brief was so blatant, wrong-headed, and self-serving made it stand out even among all the boorishly resistant behavior that we have seen in the committee’s investigation of the Capitol riot.
Trump’s team filed a supplementary brief to the Supreme Court in support of his effort to block committee access to White House records about what he was doing before and during the Jan. 6 insurrection, a request that the current White House and two lower courts have rejected. We’re awaiting a hearing date.
In the short filing, which you can read here, Trump’s lawyers basically say that the committee is seeking information that would support a criminal referral against Trump — as if that should disqualify the request for White House information. The effort to establish a criminal complaint against Trump is something the lawyers say is beyond the committee’s authority.
In response the committee asked the court yesterday to reject Trump’s request to shield his records.
The filing alerts the justices to a Dec. 23 Washington Post interview with Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., the committee’s chairman in which Thompson said the committee is looking into Trump’s actions and inactions on Jan. 6 as it considers whether to recommend that the Justice Department open a criminal investigation into the former president.
How is this a legal argument before the court. It’s a cry for help.
Understating the Obvious
Well, yeah. The whole point of the investigation is to determine what happened and who brought it about. Various testimony, a huge number of emails, call records and documents have brought the planning for an effort to stop certification of last November’s election inside the White House.
And, there have been broad statements that some of what went on is in apparent violation of written laws, including those about sedition and actions intended to interfere with election counts and certification.
The question all along has been what actually happened, and the degree to which criminality or other responsibility can be assigned.
We’ve been talking for months already about the degree to which the acknowledged campaign to Stop the Steal was drawing in Republican legislators to delay, cancel or throw out election results, and the links to the rioting by thousands of MAGA supporters gathered and aimed at the Capitol that day complete with zip ties to kidnap political opponents, violent confrontations with Capitol police and calls for hanging Vice President Mike Pence and kidnap of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among others.
So, the brief filed on Wednesday says, “The Washington Post has confirmed what was already apparent — the Committee is indeed seeking any excuse to refer a political rival for criminal charges, and they are using this investigation to do so,” Trump lawyer Jesse R. Binnall wrote — as if that should be reason enough to quash any request, demand, or subpoena for White House records from that fateful week a year ago.
The standing, if novel argument until now has been that executive privilege for a former president should be recognized, even if the current president does not support it.
Of course, even if the committee should refer a criminal prosecution to the Justice Department, there is no assurance that the Justice Department would take it on. Indeed, this Justice Department has not publicly launched an investigation of the planning, financing, and organizing of the Jan. 6 rioting beyond the several hundred actual participants it has charged with entering the Capitol.
A Records Case Expanded
Officially the pending case involves Trump’s request to halt release of his White House records to the committee, and Trump’s lawyers have asked the justices to put on hold a unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to turn over 800 pages of his papers.
Joe Biden and the current White House legal team have said most should be turned over.
Basically, Trump wants delays and an eventual Supreme Court decision that absolves him from answering any questions about what he did to coordinate with planners of that day or for sitting on his hands for three hours while rioting went on — something chairman Thompson described as “dereliction of duty.”
“That dereliction of duty causes us real concern,” Thompson said. “And one of those concerns is that whether or not it was intentional, and whether or not that lack of attention for that longer period of time, would warrant a referral.”
The “legislative purpose” of the investigation seems reasonably broad to determine what gave rise to an unprecedented attack on the Capitol, Congress’ home, to stop an election. The argument here is that if the primary concern has turned to uncovering crimes, it brings “legislative purpose” into legal question.
For a guy who wants to be president so badly as to seek to overturn popular and Electoral College votes, to continue to claim widespread fraud for voting by mail, to demand reinstatement in the White House, Trump continues to amaze as he would explain absolutely nothing about his behavior.
##