Trump’s coercion and duty on Jan. 6 allows for a special prosecutor

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In August 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a diplomatic mission to the Middle East at a political event when he addressed the Republican National Convention in a video from Jerusalem with the Western Wall in the background. Pompey repeatedly cited President Donald Trumps ’pro-Israel policies, the subject of his official diplomatic mission.

If crimes are committed, even by the former president himself, they should be prosecuted.

The State Department is already at the center of Trumps scheme to withhold U.S. aid for Ukraine unless Ukraine initiates a criminal investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden . Of course, that was the subject of Trumps ’first impeachment, in which the Senate, which was then controlled by Republicans, refused to even listen to witnesses.

It is a federal crime for any person to intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, command, or coerce, any Federal Government employee … to engage, or not to engage, any political work.

Any person mentioned in 18 USC 610 of the federal code does not exclude a former president such as Trump, who intimidated, threatened, ordered, or coerced federal employees, most of his or her own appointees, into political activity as support for his re -election campaign. . Trump’s pressure intensified after he lost the election, and he relied on the Justice Department and the military to re -run the 2020 election.

More than 30 years ago, then-Sen. Joe Biden’s rebellious argument that special prosecutors were needed when high -ranking officials broke journalists ’faith in the integrity of governments. His current president, and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, have the authority to appoint a special counsel to investigate and prosecute Trump’s criminal allegations and others, including violations of the law of political coercion. .

Garland not only has that authority, but he also has an obligation. If crimes are committed, even by the former president himself, they should be prosecuted.

There is overwhelming evidence that Trump has repeatedly violated criminal law prohibiting coercion.

In October, Claire Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and I filed a criminal complaint with the Department of Justice requesting an investigation into whether Trump violated the law of political coercion. We taught intense politics, at the behest of presidents, at federal agencies, including the State Department and the Postal Service.

There is overwhelming evidence that Trump has repeatedly violated criminal law prohibiting coercion.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump nominee, changed mail delivery processes in the summer of 2020, at the right time to inflict maximum damage on mail and sow skepticism among voters about to vote by mail.

Perhaps worst of all was the intense politics of the Department of Justice under Attorney William Barr, who Trump forced to support his re -election and who, in turn, taught Justice Department constituents to engage in missions that can only be identified. as political.

That includes the politics of Barrs ’May 2020 shooting by Jeffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, because Berman was at the center of numerous investigations sensitive to Trump and his campaign. These include political interference in the Department of Justice’s criminal trial against Trump campaign aides Roger Stone and Michael Flynn and Barrs ’involvement in attacks by federal officials on peaceful protesters in nearby Lafayette Square in the White House.

That attack was immediately followed by Trumps appearing in a campaign photo holding a Bible outside St. Louis. Johns Episcopal Church.

According to reporting from the Washington Examiner, a report detailing abuses within the Department of Justice had an impact on Barr: Trump said Barr became a different person after two ethics groups in October that called for his impeachment, with the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington arguing that he used his position as attorney general for political purposes to assist the former president.

After Barr’s resignation, Trump placed extraordinary pressure on his successor, Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, to cancel the election. Jeffrey Clark, a Trump political employee at the Department of Justice, wrote a Justice Department note for Rosens ’signature claiming to have seen election fraud.

If Rosen signed it, the memo would be an official Justice Department finding that the election was invalid, justifying any steps Trump believes are necessary to force a new and fair election. Despite pressure from Trump and his political allies, Rosen refused.

In late November, Trump met with Flynn, his former national security adviser, and others at the White House to discuss the possibility of using his power as leader-by-command to declare martial law and order the troop troops who assisted in re -election.

Biden only needs to read his own article on law review to know what to do about it.

According to a soon -to -be published book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was so concerned about Trump’s state of mind that he told military leaders they would have to run any order from Trump to use a nuclear weapon through him. A previous book has already revealed Milleys ’concerns about Trump’s behavior as his term draws to a close. According to Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig’s book I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trumps Catastrophic Final Year, America is uncomfortable near a military coup. It was a Reichstag moment, Milley told aides in January. The gospel of the Fhrer.

Denying that he had talked to Milley about a coup, Trump said, I saw at that moment that he had no courage or skills, certainly not the kind of person I could talk to about the coup.

According to Milleys account, Trump wanted a coup but he had no military support. Would that be the case if Rosen signed the memo declaring election fraud?

All of the above took place before Trump allegedly incited an uprising by a mob of his supporters on Jan. 6. Executions for the U.S. Capitol Police came slowly, and we don’t yet know if Trump or anyone else considering sending federal troops or providing other federal assistance to the rioters.

The events on Jan. 6 should be the subject of another criminal Justice Department investigation that extended beyond the foot soldiers charged with the assault on the Capitol. Trump may be criminally responsible for what happened that day, and if so, he should be charged.

Trump should have been accused during his presidency on charges of obstruction of justice in the investigation into Robert Mueller and his coercion into the political work of senior State Department officials in the Ukraine scandal. He continued to commit crimes in the office in part because he was never charged with a criminal offense even though there was strong evidence of past crimes.

The Department of Justice for years has refused to prosecute a sitting president based on questionable constitutional arguments. That’s wrong. A president who shot someone on Fifth Avenue, as Trump was proud he could, or who committed any other crime should be prosecuted just like everyone else. And his status as a former president is not reason enough not to launch an investigation today.

Criminal investigations and prosecutions of high-ranking officials should be independent of political considerations. This point was made succinctly in an article in Biden’s 1987 North Carolina Law Review defending the constitutionality of the independent advice law passed after Watergate.

Criminal investigations and prosecutions of high-ranking officials should be independent of political considerations.

The history of this country … demonstrates the need for an independent investigative arm in the federal government. There are some rare moments of crisis where people believe the integrity and independence of their elected officials is caused by the waiver. These scandals tarnish the view that the Attorney General is an independent executive officer who can be trusted to enforce criminal law in high government offices. To restore full public confidence in the investigation of criminal wrongdoing by high -ranking government officials.

Biden is right. In the last year of the Trump administration, we have experienced what may have been one of the most extraordinary moments of crisis since the Civil War. Biden only needs to read his own article on law review to know what to do about it.

Whether a former president is to be prosecuted for allegations including coercion of political activity by federal employees or incitement to strike should not be a political call. A president who commits such crimes should be prosecuted if we do not want those crimes to be repeated by future presidents or our representative of democracy harmed.

Garland should appoint a special counsel that can make decisions independent of political considerations, whether for or against Trump. That prosecutor must follow the facts and the law wherever they lead, focusing single-mindedly on that concept that is fundamental to representative democracy: No one is above the law.

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