“Get an excellent criminal defense lawyer. You will need it. ” This is what one of the lawyers of former President Donald Trump warned in a video released on Tuesday by the selection committee on January 6. This lawyer testified in a message he sent to John Eastman, who developed a plan for Trump to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to overthrow the 2020 election. The suggestion, of course, is that Eastman’s activities were criminal. And the release of this video, which largely featured spokeswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) Previewing Thursday’s hearing as committee vice president, had the desired effect: it created media anticipation for a new series. revelations. But to really understand the significance of this, focus on a different quote – one by Cheney. In the video, Cheney reminded us that the commission has proven convincingly that Trump was widely informed that he had lost. Cheney then said Thursday’s hearing would focus on Trump’s relentless pressure on Pence to overturn the countdown in the congressional election. “President Trump had no real basis for what he did and he was told it was illegal,” Cheney said. However, he added, Trump was “conspiring” with Eastman and others to overturn the election on January 6, 2021. Follow the views of Greg SargentFollow Add A crucial hint is that Trump they had said that this was illegal. This suggests that the commission may provide new evidence that Trump had been warned that such pressure – which was an attempt to push Pence to violate his official duties – could violate the law. A source close to Cheney tells me that the commission is very likely to present such evidence. When Cheney says such things, the source says, “based on information the committee knows.” Trump’s pressure on Pence to abuse his role as Senate president by delaying the election is the key to unlocking this whole scandal. Eastman devised a false legal justification for Pence to secure this delay, which would allow states to reconsider the vote, consider it fraudulent, and certify fake voters for Trump, overturning his loss. But it is also crucial that Trump was told that this would be illegal on Pence’s part. In addition, they seem to have told Trump of can force Pence to do that also to be illegal. What do we know about this part of the story? We know that Pence’s adviser wrote a note informing Trump that if Pence carried out his plan, he would be violating the 1887 election counting law, which governs the way Congress counts presidential voters. Which means Trump said he was pushing Pence to violate his official duty and break the law. However, Trump continued to do so, even on Jan. 6, when he hit Pence again on a phone call and then flogged the mob to put even more pressure on Pence to carry out the dirty act. As to whether Trump was informed that his act of exerting this pressure may also be illegal, remember that the selection committee has received relevant texts between Fox News’ Sean Hannidi and Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows. In it, Hannity suggested that he had insight into the White House talks about whether Trump’s pressure on Pence was legitimate. Haniti even seemed to be proposing that the entire office of the White House adviser resign. So does the commission have more evidence that Trump or his top advisers were informed that they were pressuring Pence to break the law? Cheney certainly seemed to suggest the same. What laws might be involved here? A federal judge recently ruled that Trump’s pressure on Pence may have violated two laws. One prohibits the obstruction of a formal process (the counting of voters). The other bars are conspiring to deceive the United States (Trump and Eastman may have conspired to disrupt this count). If Trump was told that Pence’s pressure was illegal, he could support the hypothesis that Trump violated one of those statutes. It could be more evidence that Trump did one or both of these things with corruption, says Randall Eliason, a white-collar crime expert. “The conspiracy to deceive the United States and the conspiracy to obstruct a process in Congress require the government to show that it has corrupt or unjust intentions,” Eliasson told me. “This is another piece.” In other words, if Trump was informed that he was pressuring Pence, he had put him on an unstable legal basis, but he continued to do so anyway, he could disarm the argument that Trump simply believed he had won the election and was just exercising it. his legal choices. answer. Eliasson warned that this would represent part of a broader effort to prove Trump’s corrupt intentions throughout. Other evidence includes strong evidence that Trump knew he had lost, but tried to reverse the results anyway, and that Trump pressured the Justice Department to fabricate widespread voter fraud to create a pretext for the whole plot. In that account, Eliasson said, Trump’s pressure on Pence would be “one of the many incidents that tend to indicate his mental state.” We still do not know if Trump or his conspirators will ever face a criminal investigation into January 6. But Cheney just left a big hint about the commission’s case against Eastman and Trump. “Get a great criminal defense lawyer,” indeed.
