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Post by Admin on Feb 2, 2022 21:39:41 GMT
In the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump seriously considered issuing a blanket pardon for all participants in the Jan. 6 riot, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Between Jan. 6 and Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump made three calls to one adviser to discuss the idea. “Do you think I should pardon them? Do you think it’s a good idea? Do you think I have the power to do it?” Trump told the person, who summarized their conversations. Another adviser to the former president said Trump asked questions about how participants in the riot might be charged criminally, and how a uniform pardon could provide them protection going forward. “Is it everybody that had a Trump sign or everybody who walked into the Capitol” who could be pardoned? Trump asked, according to that adviser. “He said, 'Some people think I should pardon them.' He thought if he could do it, these people would never have to testify or be deposed.” The people who spoke with Trump were granted anonymity to describe their discussions frankly. The previously unreported conversations show that Trump wasn’t simply musing when he told supporters at a Texas rally last weekend that he would consider pardoning people prosecuted for their role in the Jan. 6 attack if he runs for president again in 2024 and wins. Even in the immediate aftermath of the riot, Trump was expressing sympathy for those involved and weighing how he could shield them from legal consequences. “If I run and I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” he said at the Saturday rally outside Houston. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.” The comments have triggered complaints among members of the House Jan. 6 committee that Trump is engaging in witness tampering.
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Post by Admin on Feb 2, 2022 22:01:34 GMT
Trump’s consideration of preemptive pardons quickly hit a wall. It was unclear how he could pardon an entire class of people that hadn’t been charged. “You didn’t know who the FBI was going to arrest down the road,” the first adviser said.
At the same time, the White House counsel’s office was forcefully telling Trump what he could not do as president, this person said.
“There was a dangling threat that if he pushed too hard, [White House counsel Pat] Cipollone would leave,” the adviser said. Cipollone declined to comment.
The second adviser said that Trump’s interest in pardoning the participants was like many of the other ideas that he’s floated in the past to a cadre of aides — more brainstorming and soliciting their opinion than deliberately adopting a plan. The person said that while Trump considered the blanket pardon, at the time he was more focused on challenging the election results.
A third adviser who spoke with Trump frequently in the final days before he left office recalled that Trump asked questions about whether he should announce his intention to run again in 2024 before Biden’s inauguration.
“At the time, he wanted to not just be the leader of the party, but flat-out show the world that he’s running again and you’re not going to stop him,” the person said.
But Trump learned that a formal announcement would trigger concerns about campaign finance regulations he’d be forced to comply with immediately after leaving office. According to two advisers, he settled on more general language, like “I’ll be back.”
The first adviser said that Trump saw announcing his presidency right away as a way to frame any future prosecutions against him as politically motivated. Trump also thought that blasting the 2020 election as “rigged” — a claim made without evidence — would energize his base over the next four years, the person said.
“He wanted to carry the sense of grievance into the election cycle,” the adviser said. “He said, ‘I’m running again.’”
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Post by Admin on Feb 17, 2022 20:51:42 GMT
WATCH LIVE: House Administration hearing on Jan. 6 attack with the Capitol Police Inspector General 894 watching now • Started streaming 43 minutes ago
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Post by Admin on Mar 5, 2022 18:02:14 GMT
Bill Barr: I Think Trump Was Responsible For Jan. 6 'In The Broad Sense’ 57,814 views • Mar 4, 2022 • NBC’s Lester Holt sat down with former Attorney General William Barr, who stood at the center of many firestones that engulfed the Trump presidency. Barr opens up about criticism that he acted more as the former president’s personal lawyer rather than attorney general, addresses how their relationship came to an abrupt end and if he thinks Trump is responsible for January 6th. “I do think he was responsible in the broad sense of that word in that it appears that it was part of the plan to send this group up to the Hill. I think the whole idea was to intimidate Congress. And I think that was wrong,” he says.
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Post by Admin on Mar 28, 2022 17:37:55 GMT
A federal judge ruled Monday that President Donald Trump “more likely than not” attempted to illegally obstruct Congress as part of a criminal conspiracy when he tried to subvert the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021. “Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” U.S. District Court Judge David Carter wrote. Carter’s sweeping and historic ruling came as he ordered the release to the House’s Jan. 6 committee of 101 emails from Trump ally John Eastman, rejecting Eastman’s effort to shield them via attorney-client privilege. Eastman used the email account of his former employer, Chapman University, to discuss political and legal strategy related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election and had sued the select committee to prevent them from obtaining the emails from the school. Carter, who sits in federal court in California, said that the plan Eastman helped develop was obviously illegal and that Trump knew it at the time, but pushed forward with an effort he says would have effectively ended American democracy. “If Dr. Eastman and President Trump’s plan had worked, it would have permanently ended the peaceful transition of power, undermining American democracy and the Constitution,” Carter wrote. “If the country does not commit to investigating and pursuing accountability for those responsible, the Court fears January 6 will repeat itself.” The remarkable ruling may be the first in history in which a federal judge determined a president, while in office, appeared to commit a crime. The decision has no direct role in whether Trump will be charged criminally but could increase pressure on the Justice Department and its chief, Attorney General Merrick Garland, to conduct an aggressive investigation that could lead to such charges.
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