Why Jan. 6 Committee's Subpoena Unlikely to Endanger Trump's Potential 2024 Bid
© AP Photo / Julia Nikhinson / Former President Donald Trump departs Trump Tower,
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The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack has voted to subpoena former President Donald Trump. It remains unclear whether the former president will testify, given that the committee risks running out of time.
"First of all, the January 6 committee is a political sham in an effort to prevent President Donald Trump from running again," said Marс Little, lawyer, political commentator, and executive director of Cure America Action, Inc. "Their hope was to have enough to indict him so that somehow that indictment might even lead to jail. It is highly unlikely, given the raid on his home in Mar-a-Lago, which seems to be more of desperation because they didn't have much at all."
The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack was formed in July 2021 by House Democrats to investigate the Capitol protests in DC over alleged election fraud related to the 2020 presidential race. The Democratic-dominated panel has only two Republicans on its board, with both of them long known for their criticism of ex-President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. The panel was fiercely criticized by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who said at the time that "Republicans will not be party to [Pelosi's] sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts."
Since its inception, the select committee has conducted a series of hearings which have been regarded by conservatives as an attempt to frame Trump and make him appear complicit in some sort of seditious conspiracy and disrupt the former president's new election bid.
Speaking to ABC’s This Week on June 19, 2022, Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, one of two GOP members on the panel, assumed that Trump’s actions surrounding the January 6 protests amount to "seditious conspiracy" and "criminal involvement by a president" to challenge Joe Biden's win. Still, according to Little, the assumption does not hold water.
"I'm looking forward to President Trump testifying before the January 6 committee because his side has not had a chance to be heard," Little said. "The reality is that President Trump's very own words were: 'Go to the Capitol peacefully and let your voices be heard.' There's nothing about that that incited violence. Also, Trump authorized the National Guard to protect the Capitol. Both [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and the mayor of the District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser, declined the protection. So how can someone incite violence while at the same time giving the authorization to prevent violence by authorizing protection?"
Will Trump Testify Before January 6 Panel?
Still, it is not clear whether Donald Trump will testify before the committee, even though the panel voted last Thursday to subpoena the former president. In a lengthy response to the committee's move, Trump didn't say whether he is planning to comply. American legal experts from both sides of the US political aisle suggest that Trump may resort to delaying tactics until January 3, 2023, when Republicans are likely to take the House following the November midterms and wind up the panel.
Thus, Richard A. Serafini, former Justice Department senior trial attorney, referred to earlier cases involving Trump's former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino, Jr., Kashyap Patel, and Steve Bannon, which took months to unfold. Serafini suggested in his op-ed for NBC News that even if the Democrats retain the lower chamber, Trump could invoke his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment. While commenting on whether Trump could be indicted for contempt of Congress if he refuses to comply with the subpoena, the ex-DoJ attorney expressed doubts over the Justice Department taking this step.
For his part, Jonathan Turley, Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University, raised the question as to why the House select committee had delayed subpoenaing Trump and waited until the last hearing, especially if the House may flip to GOP control in a matter of weeks. "If the committee truly wanted to compel Trump’s testimony, it should have subpoenaed him in 2021," the lawyer wrote in an op-ed for The Hill. "Yet liberals celebrated the committee’s belated move as a 'bombshell ending' instead of asking why it had not been a bombshell beginning."
Still, Little does not rule out that the Dems' attempts to frame Trump over the DC protests will continue even if the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack winds up after the midterms.
"If and when the Republicans take back the House and the Senate it won't go away, because the Department of Justice is still controlled by a political hack [Attorney General] Merrick Garland [appointed by Joe Biden]," said Little. "And so they may still proceed with their agenda, but it will be very unpopular in America. And the Democrats will continue to suffer consequences for pursuing baseless claims against the former president."
Donald Trump and Hunter Biden Cases
Little has no doubt that the Democratic Party's investigation into Donald Trump is politically motivated, with the Justice Department and the FBI demonstrating a biased approach towards the former president since day one of his presidency. The DoJ and the bureau's handling of the case of Hunter Biden, the son of the incumbent president, came in stark contrast with that, according to the lawyer.
The story of Hunter's "laptop from hell" unveiled by the New York Post in October 2020, prior to the presidential elections, was suppressed by the US intelligence community. 51 former intelligence veterans denounced the damning evidence emanating from the laptop as "Russian disinformation" at the time, thus burying the story. Eventually, independent forensic specialists proved that the data originating from Hunter's device was genuine and belonged to the president's son.
"What is also very troubling is the knowledge that the FBI had heard about this laptop as of December 2019, and they didn't do or say anything about it," said Little. "Hunter Biden's laptop shows that the Biden family is not only corrupt, but they are very likely compromised by their dealings with foreign nations taking money and participating in all manner of pay for play."
The Dems made as many efforts to suppress the Hunter story before the 2020 elections as they are making now to bring focus to what they call Trump's "criminal" conduct during the DC riots. Nonetheless, "the January 6 committee for most Americans is nonexistent and therefore it's not relevant today," Little said. Americans are much more concerned about galloping inflation and growing crime than the Dems' narrative and Biden's branding MAGA as "semi-fascists," according to the lawyer.
23 July 2022, 18:01 GMT
"The Democrats have lost their way. And Americans, I believe, in this midterm election, will begin the process of taking back this nation," Little said.
If Republicans take the House this autumn, they will not only dismember the January 6 panel, but are also likely to push ahead with investigations into Hunter and Joe Biden. Speaking to Time Magazine earlier this month, GOP Rep. James Comer from Kentucky explained that Republican members of Congress are investigating Hunter Biden because they believe he’s a national security threat, who they fear has compromised Joe Biden. "The Hunter Biden investigation is slowly becoming the Joe Biden investigation," he underscored.
