Judge’s Words May Backfire on Donald Trump

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A federal judge said Tuesday that a California woman found guilty of charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol “followed instructions from then-President Trump,” language believed to be experts who may come back to haunt the former president in a potential criminal. case.

Trump is currently not charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol, when a mob of his supporters stormed the building in an effort to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

But last month, the now-dissolved House committee that investigated the riot referred Trump to the Justice Department on charges including inciting or aiding an insurrection.

Before his supporters stormed the Capitol, Trump held a Stop the Steal rally, where he warned attendees that they won’t “have a country” if they don’t “fight like hell.” Trump’s Stop the Steal actions were front and center in District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s opinion Tuesday in the Danean MacAndrew case on Jan. 6.

Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. A federal judge said Tuesday that a California woman found guilty of charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol “followed instructions from then-President Trump,” language believed to be experts who can return the former president to a potential criminal. case. Brent Stirton/Getty Images; Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Kollar-Kotelly said Trump “eponymously exhorted his supporters to, in fact, stop the steal by marching to the Capitol” at the January 6 rally. Despite numerous signs that his presence in the Capitol was illegal, MacAndrew continued as he “heeded the call of former President Trump,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

The judge’s assertion of his findings of fact “has no direct legal effect” on the ongoing investigation on Jan. 6, but it should not be ignored all the same, according to former federal prosecutor Michael McAuliffe.

McAuliffe told Newsweek that “it’s remarkable every time a federal judge publicly attributes criminal conduct to following the directives of a then-sitting president.”

“Another sign that the evidence in the larger number of prosecutions in the January 6 insurrection points to Trump as a culpable participant,” he added.

Bill Dunlap, a law professor at Quinnipiac University, believes that Kollar-Kotelly’s finding is unlikely to play a “significant role” in any future charges against Trump. Dunlap told Newsweek that the judge’s main point was to establish that MacAndrew did what he did knowingly and intentionally when he “joined the protest at the behest of Trump.”

But there were other defendants on Jan. 6 who blamed Trump for what happened that day, with some saying they believed they were following his orders, Axios reported.

“The fact that so many of the protesters on Jan. 6 are pointing to Trump’s speech as a motivating factor is likely to play” in a potential criminal case in which he is accused of inciting an insurrection, Dunlap said.

Craig Trocino, an attorney, professor and director of the University of Miami School of Law’s Innocence Clinic, also noted that other defendants tried on Jan. 6 to defend their actions by pointing to Trump. The extent of the impact of Kollar-Kotelly’s fact-finding will depend on what Trump is charged with if he is indicted.

If Trump is charged with inciting an uprising, “then the language and behavior of the incitement will be relevant,” Trocino told Newsweek. He added that when Trump’s language and behavior become relevant, the subsequent actions of the people who hear him become meaningful as well.

“And now, we have a finding in court that this individual went and did what he did in direct relation to the words that were used,” Trocino said.

Whether it can be used against Trump remains to be seen, but “I think it’s definitely pointing in that direction,” he said.

Prosecutors may also be emboldened to charge Trump because of Kollar-Kotelly’s language, according to Tamara Lave, a former San Diego public defender and law professor at the University of Miami’s School of Law.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is facing pressure from Democrats to indict Trump for January 6, while Republicans have railed against the idea of ​​prosecuting Trump.

Although any prosecutor indicting Trump would still have to prove his guilt on any charges beyond a reasonable doubt, Kollar-Kotelly’s language could provide “political cover” to a prosecutor who wants to take the case. against the former president, Lave told Newsweek.

Newsweek has reached an attorney for Trump for comment.

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