Opinion: Beware, Trump. 80 new Justice Department lawyers can do a lot of digging.
“The Jan. 6 investigation is among the most wide-ranging and most complex that this department has ever undertaken," Monaco said. “It reaches nearly every U.S. attorney’s office, nearly every FBI field office.”
Lack of money won’t slow the department down. Monaco reiterated, “Regardless of whatever resources we seek or get, let’s be very, very clear: We are going to continue to do those cases.” She added, “We are going to hold those perpetrators accountable, no matter where the facts lead us, [and] as the attorney general has said, no matter at what level. We will do those cases.”
The announcement came the same day that U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, in a case concerning whether documents from Trump lawyer John Eastman sought by the House select committee investigating the insurrection are protected by attorney-client privilege, held that disgraced former president Donald Trump likely committed multiple crimes.
As former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal tells me: “[Carter’s opinion] is just further evidence, laying out the case for Donald Trump to be prosecuted. It can’t be ignored.” He added, “[The] decision reinforces the need for DOJ to conduct a serious investigation of Donald Trump, and not just those under him.”
The funding request and Monaco’s vow to pursue culprits “no matter at what level” suggest that Justice Department investigators will continue to follow the chain upward from the insurrection participants and planners to those in the previous administration who set out to overturn the election, including Trump. Still, the absence of any indication that Justice Department lawyers are questioning higher-level personnel leaves many wondering: What is the department up to, and what will it do with all the resources it is seeking?
For starters, the department might start questioning lawmakers who have so far been unwilling to voluntarily appear before the Jan. 6 committee, which the committee declines to litigate. A U.S. attorney can convene a grand jury and haul in, for example, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to testify about his conversations with the White House as insurrections stormed the Capitol. And while Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) now sounds ready to testify before the committee, others whose names appear in text messages with Trump officials or documents concerning Trump’s effort to pressure the Justice Department into declaring the election fraudulent could also be subpoenaed.
Some of the department’s new resources could be directed to other participants in the alleged conspiracy to keep Trump in power, such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). The Post details in a new blockbuster report “just how deeply he was involved, working directly with Trump to concoct a plan that came closer than widely realized to keeping him in power.” Given that many aides and friends tried to talk Cruz out of these efforts, there are a wealth of witnesses the Justice Department could seek to determine the extent of the senator’s involvement in the attempt to obstruct the joint meeting of Congress or to defraud the United States.
If Cruz understood there was no evidence of election fraud (as multiple officials had told the president) and still sought to delay the tabulation of electoral votes to create chaos or somehow buy time for Trump to somehow retain power (seize election machines? declare martial law?), he could face significant legal liability. Moreover, insofar as Eastman is facing disciplinary charges in California, it hardly seems fair that Cruz, who apparently worked in parallel with Eastman, should escape scrutiny for violating his professional obligations.
There would be no shortage of work for the Justice Department’s new attorneys. While former Trump administration officials who have snubbed the Jan. 6 committee’s requests for testimony (e.g., Peter Navarro, Dan Scavino, Mark Meadows) might decide to take the Fifth before a grand jury, prosecutors can consider immunity deals. That would certainly speed up the inquiry.
The Justice Department will need to make good on its vow to follow the facts wherever they lead. As constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe tells me, there is no “honorable way for [Attorney General] Merrick Garland to avoid pursuing the path Judge Carter has not only clearly marked but blazingly illuminated. Short of klieg lights, Carter has pointed the way to criminal investigation and prosecution of the former president as forcefully as a federal judge properly can.”
Indeed, the only question remains: What is the Justice Department waiting for?
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