Testimony Opens Whole New Legal Avenue Against Trump, Storied Legal Scholar Says
Specifically, former president may have committed wire fraud in fundraising scam
Testimony Monday before the latest public hearing of the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection points to a new avenue from which to criminally indict Donald Trump.
That's according to the venerable legal scholar and retired Harvard law professor, Laurence Tribe.
The bipartisan select committee, which kicked off its current series of public hearings last week during primetime television with bombshell new findings, held its most recent hearing Monday.
The session focused on Trump's “Big Lie,” or his oft-repeated — but entirely false — claims that the 2020 presidential election was somehow stolen from him by widespread Democratic Party fraud which was always fictitious.
However, testimony coming out of the Monday session points to potentially new, serious criminal exposure for the former president, who — for months — fundraised to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars from his supporters.
Trump pulled in $255.4 million in political donations from his supporters in the eight weeks following the 2020 election, according to recent federal filings, but much of this money—which was solicited to fund challenges to the outcome based on specious claims of voter fraud—will likely be put to other uses.
“Today’s testimony opens a new possibility: charging Trump not only with seditious conspiracy (18 USC 2384), inciting insurrection (2383), defrauding the US (371) & obstructing a congressional proceeding (1505) but also wire fraud (18 USC 1343): fleecing ordinary citizens of $$$$$,” tweeted Tribe, such an expert in constitutional law that he has aided several foreign countries draft their own constitutions.
Some of those reacting to Tribe's tweet agreed that Trump wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on, in defense.
“Donald Trump did not and does not reasonably believe the there was election fraud. Under the doctrine of conscious avoidance, he cannot put his head in the sand to avoid reality. The ‘delusional sociopath’ defense (h/t @chrislhayes) would not hold up in a criminal trial,” replied Daniel Goldman, former lead counsel in House impeachment of Trump, one-time federal prosecutor and current Democratic candidate for Congress from New York.
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