"He's under investigation in several different places. In November, prosecutors brought contempt-of-Congress charges against the Trump ally Steve Bannon over his defiance of the House January 6 committee, but critics of the Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland have voiced frustration with the lack of visible steps to investigate Trump while local prosecutors in New York and Atlanta have undertaken inquiries into the former president and his business. The Justice Department has charged more than 700 people accused of joining the pro-Trump mob that overtook the Capitol on January 6. Meadows' testimony will bear on a key question in front of this committee: Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress's official proceeding to count electoral votes?" said Cheney, the top-ranking Republican on the committee. Liz Cheney of Wyoming appeared to make a direct reference to a criminal statute that has been used to prosecute hundreds of suspects in the January 6 attack: "corruptly obstructing an official proceeding." As the committee took steps in December to hold the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt, Rep. In recent weeks, the panel has grown increasingly vocal about Trump's potential criminal culpability stemming from January 6.
The panel hired a pair of former US attorneys as lead investigators and, in the past several months, obtained thousands of records and questioned multiple former administration officials and other close Trump associates. The House committee has moved aggressively in its investigation into the January 6 attack, motivated in part by the expectation that Republicans would shut down the inquiry if they regain the majority in this year's midterm elections. 'No upside' legally to holding public events
Liz Cheney has spoken specifically about the January 6 committee's interest in Trump's criminal culpability. Trump's lawyers have argued his comments at the Save America rally nearly a year ago - in which he said, "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore" - are protected by the "absolute immunity" afforded to presidents and by the First Amendment. But the cancellation of the January 6 press conference means Trump won't deliver public remarks just days before a crucial court hearing in cases alleging that he encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol.Īny remarks at the press conference would almost surely have complicated the hearing, scheduled for January 10 in Washington, DC, federal court, where a judge is set to hear Trump's arguments for dismissing lawsuits filed by Democratic lawmakers and Capitol Police officers. Trump now plans to share his views about January 6 and the 2020 election during a rally on January 15 in Arizona. He is very reckless when he speaks in front of an audience," said Rizwan Qureshi, a former prosecutor in the US attorney's office in Washington, DC, which is handling the hundreds of criminal cases stemming from the Capitol riot. "It is a really boneheaded move because we know he does not pull any punches. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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