Trump questions linger as DOJ expands Jan. 6 fishing expedition / trip / boondoggle / joke / probe

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3561907-trump-questions-
linger-as-doj-expands-jan-6-probe/

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is facing pressure as the House Jan. 6
select committee’s presentation of damning evidence involving the Trump
White House has raised questions about whether federal prosecutors have
kept pace with the lawmakers’ inquiry and how long the former president
can escape being directly investigated.

Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told reporters this
week the panel was nearing an agreement to share some of its work on
Trump’s “alternate elector” scheme that would send faulty certificates to
Washington in an attempt to reverse President Biden’s victory in key
states.

The move generated a more positive tone from members of the committee who
have often been critical of the speed of DOJ’s investigation.

“Well, I think they’re looking at more than that. And I think over time,
you will see a little broader view on the investigation,” Thompson said
Thursday.

Thompson said he was speaking from “personal knowledge” but declined to
elaborate.

The Justice Department has reportedly been caught off-guard by some of the
select committee’s revelations.

According to a New York Times story this week, former White House aide
Cassidy Hutchinson’s stunning testimony last month included some
assertions that were new to federal prosecutors, prompting DOJ leadership
to more directly discuss Trump’s role, including in the presence of
Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“It seems clear that DOJ is behind the committee investigatively, which is
hard to comprehend and unforgivable from DOJ’s perspective,” Elie Honig, a
former federal prosecutor in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, told
The Hill.

“Federal prosecutors have every investigative advantage over Congress.
Federal prosecutors have far more personnel than Congress has. They have
much more powerful subpoenas than Congress has, they have the ability to
conduct search warrants, to do wiretaps, they have the ability to use the
threat of prison time to flip cooperators. Congress has none of that and
yet Congress appears to be way out ahead of DOJ.”

And many observers say they remain concerned the Justice Department seems
to be dancing around directly investigating Trump.

Ryan Goodman, co-director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at the
New York University School of Law, pointed to the recent search warrant
executed on Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general with a specialty
in environmental law that Trump mulled installing as head of DOJ in order
to push a department investigation into election fraud.

“How can you criminally investigate Jeff Clark, and the alternate slate of
electors and avoid where it lands, where it ends up, which is with Donald
Trump. But by that time, if they haven’t really opened up an investigation
on him as the target, we’re now already 18 months following these events.
It’s really a dereliction of their responsibilities to do a fulsome and
rigorous investigation. That’s my major concern,” Goodman said.

Indications that the DOJ may be lagging behind the select committee have
prompted some high-profile criticism.

Andrew Weissmann, a former federal prosecutor who worked on Robert
Mueller’s special counsel investigation, published an opinion piece in the
Times last week criticizing the department’s approach to the
investigation, arguing that prosecutors should not have been taken by
surprise by a congressional inquiry’s findings.

“That is not a sign of a robust investigation into the facts,” Weissmann
wrote. “The department has more tools than Congress does to learn the
truth. It could have interviewed Ms. Hutchinson long ago, as well as many
others whose evidence is relevant — indeed, Ms. Hutchinson alone provided
investigators numerous leads to pursue.”

The select committee has provided a growing number of revelations about
Trump’s efforts to undermine the election and his conduct before and
during the Jan. 6 attack. That evidence has also raised new questions for
investigators, including about the level of coordination — if any —
between Trump and right-wing groups that descended on D.C. for the
Electoral College certification.

Legal experts say those fresh lines of inquiry should now be a top
priority for law enforcement’s own investigation, as federal prosecutors
are best equipped to fill in the gaps of what Congress has uncovered.

Goodman said that could include a conversation with Dan Scavino, Trump’s
social media guru, who the committee said aided his alleged outreach to
extremists. And Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, close Trump associates who
used members of extremist groups as their personal security, are also ripe
for investigation.

“There are obvious loose ends from the committee’s work, that the
Department of Justice would have a much easier time investigating with all
of the tools at their disposal,” Goodman said.

While he said there’s debate over whether there is enough evidence to
charge Trump, few are questioning whether there is sufficient fodder to
look at the former president.

“That’s what I think is very concerning. Given that many, many former
federal prosecutors and lawyers are debating the question of whether or
not there’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump engaged in these
conspiracies — it’s not really a debate about whether or not there should
be an investigation to find out if the evidence is sufficient,” Goodman
said.

“That to me is why it’s so concerning if the Justice Department has tied
itself in knots, especially because I do think investigation is going to
lead towards Trump.”

Honig, the former federal prosecutor, said there are signs the DOJ has
turned its attention toward Trump and his top allies after months of what
he believes was a myopic focus on Jan. 6 rioters, but the select
committee’s hearings should add new urgency for prosecutors to make up
lost ground.

“I think the committee has provided all sorts of evidentiary leads that
DOJ must follow up on and I think that’s why we’re seeing DOJ sort of
renew its requests for information,” Honig said. “And I think they’ve
given DOJ a road map of sorts.”

“I’m not saying DOJ needs to do exactly what the committee has done, but
how do you watch some of these witnesses testify or look at some of these
texts that the committee has and not follow up if you’re the DOJ?”

Other Jan. 6 committee members this week echoed Thompson’s more positive
tone.

“DOJ obviously is very notoriously private as they should be. But I think
it’s obvious there’s some activity going on now. Which to me is a good
thing,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Thursday.

But Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) noted that a federal judge in California
concluded in a civil case as far back as March that Trump likely committed
crimes — something that he said should have grabbed DOJ’s attention.

“I’m still concerned. There certainly seems to be more activity at the
Justice Department, which I think was positive. But I do continue to have
concerns that based on what is already public, as the judge in California
found, I believe there’s enough credible evidence to look at the former
president’s conduct, and I still don’t see signs of that happening at the
department,” Schiff said.

“There’s sufficient evidence because of the multiple lines of effort to
overturn the election that he was involved in.”



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