With former President Donald Trump saying that he’s been notified that a Washington-based grand jury is investigating him in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol protest and breach, a commentator who’s been closely following Jan. 6-related trials is pointing to seditious conspiracy as a charge Mr. Trump likely will face.
Mr. Trump said he was informed of being the target late on July 16 through a letter from the office of Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Mr. Trump’s involvement in the January 6 incident as well as his retention of documents from his time in the White House.
“This witch hunt is all about election interference and a complete and total political weaponization of law enforcement!” Mr. Trump commented in a July 18 post on Truth Social, his social media platform.
He said he has been given four days to show up before the grand jury; it isn’t clear whether he is being invited to testify voluntarily or subpoenaed.
‘Tactical Move’
Prosecutors should first ask for a voluntary appearance before subpoenaing the target of a criminal investigation, according to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Justice Manual.
Also, lawyers usually discourage their clients from going before a grand jury if they are the target of the investigation—it can be avoided by invoking the right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment, says Marc Ruskin, a former FBI agent and assistant U.S. attorney.
However, that may be Mr. Smith’s goal, according to Mr. Ruskin.
He noted that Mr. Trump is already facing indictments in New York and Florida and pleading the Fifth in Washington gives another talking point to his opponents.
“It could be a tactical and procedural move just to make him look bad,” he said.
“You have Trump, a former president who is running to be president again, pleading the Fifth. I guess from their point of view, it’s going to help make him less attractive as a candidate.”
If the target is not asked to testify, “the prosecutor, in appropriate cases, is encouraged to notify such person a reasonable time before seeking an indictment in order to afford him or her an opportunity to testify before the grand jury,” the manual says.
Mr. Trump indicated he believes charges against himself are imminent, saying that being told to report to the grand jury, “almost always means an Arrest and Indictment.”
Some commentators have long predicted Mr. Trump will face charges in the probe, including Julie Kelly, an independent journalist who had closely followed the trials of Jan. 6 participants.
“I’ve warned of this for over a year. I take no pride in being right,” she commented in a July 18 tweet.
“Only question now is what charges Smith will bring (strong possibility he’ll seek indictment on seditious conspiracy) and who is charged with him. (Any conspiracy charge requires at least one conspirator).”
In April, she highlighted several members of the pro-Trump Proud Boys group who were convicted of seditious conspiracy. Ms. Kelly believes the DOJ approached the Proud Boys trial in a way that seemed to lay the groundwork for bringing the same charge against Mr. Trump.
During the closing arguments, it seemed to her that prosecutors tried to tie Proud Boys to Mr. Trump, particularly regarding a comment by Mr. Trump during a 2020 presidential debate that the Proud Boys should “stand down and stand by.”
She pointed to a comment by one of the prosecutors that “defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what.”
“Convictions of 4 members of the Proud Boys set the stage for Smith to pursue a seditious conspiracy indictment against Trump because DOJ made the former president an unindicted co-conspirator of sorts during the trial,” Ms. Kelly told The Epoch Times via text.
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