Donald Trump is heading for a period of maximum legal and political risk over his role in the US Capitol insurrection and hoarding of classified documents.
A quickening special counsel probe, now focusing on the alleged attempt to steal Georgia’s election, the climax of the House January 6 committee and a new trial of pro-Trump Oath Keepers extremists underscore the breadth of attempts to secure accountability over one of the darkest days in modern American history.
It emerged Monday that Smith’s team subpoenaed Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was on the other end of the then-president’s phone call designed to convince him to “find” sufficient votes to overturn Joe Biden’s win in the Peach State in 2020. Smith has also issued a flurry of grand jury subpoenas since Thanksgiving, including to ex-Trump adviser Stephen Miller and two former White legal counsels.
“This thing is ramping up very steadily and at great pace compared to what was happening before,” Ryan Goodman, a law professor at NYU, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday.
Preet Bharara, a former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that Smith’s appointment and his assembling of a high-powered team of experienced prosecutors represented bad news for Trump.
“I don’t think they would’ve left their former positions, both in government and private practice, unless there was a serious possibility that the Justice Department was on a path to charge. And I think it’ll happen in a month,” he said.
Of the two investigations, legal experts say the one regarding classified documents may move ahead the fastest after several failed attempts by Trump in court to delay it. A judge on Monday formally dismissed Trump’s case challenging the Mar-a-Lago evidence collection and in which she had appointed a special master. That gives the Justice Department full access to tens of thousands of records and other items found among documents marked as classified in Trump’s beach club and private office.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed that no one is above the law and that investigations will go where the evidence leads. But the reality of the legal process means that any trials would take considerable time to prepare and conduct. The prospect of a prosecution of a former president and current presidential candidate is so politically explosive that it would be optimal for any proceedings to take place well before the climax of the 2024 White House race.
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