Eric Swalwell is back around to where Mitch McConnell stood just minutes after voting not guilty on Trump’s second impeachment. McConnell told the Senate and the nation watching that Trump did incite the crowd, but that it was a law enforcement issue and he expected law enforcement to investigate it as such.
It was a cop-out at the time, an excuse for the “not guilty” vote, and yet one detected sincere anger in McConnell’s voice (at the time), probably mostly due to the fact that McConnell likely thought that Trump had just sunk the GOP for a generation, unaware of the fact that Trump supporters simply don’t care.
But now, almost a full year later, after having heard nothing from DOJ despite what McConnell may have assumed, Eric Swalwell is saying that Trump could face criminal liability based on the evidence emerging now.
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This morning on CNN, Swalwell said:
“We want to know what is Donald Trump thinking, what is he doing, not doing. We now know that concerned Fox News hosts, concerned family members, concerned legislators who were with me in the chamber are all aiming their concerns at the White House, and Trump is doing nothing. And this is just one witness who is only giving us a very little amount of information, all the more reason to probe further.”
There are not many crimes that punish a person for not acting to protect others and most of the ones that do exist involve child endangerment. It may be different, though, if one has a legal duty to do all he or she can to protect others. It is difficult to be sure.
Swalwell continued:
It wasn’t an accident that Liz Cheney laid out the elements of the offense of essentially not acting to save the Congress while we’re performing the Electoral College count,” he said. When Cheney spoke during the Monday evening committee hearing, she made the case for Trump’s guilt of violating 18 USC 1505. The law makes it illegal to “corruptly, or by threats of force or by any threatening communication, influencing, obstructing, or impeding any pending proceeding pending before a department or agency of the United States, or Congress.
True. But even though Trump may have been able to play some kind of role in abating the attack much earlier, failing to do anything about it doesn’t make Trump culpable. After all, he wasn’t there attacking the Capitol. However, if he knew the plans, agreed to the plans, hyped up his speech in agreement with the plans, then specifically didn’t do anything in order to allow the plan time to evolve, he becomes a conspirator to that crime. It is possible that Swalwell and Cheney know more than they’re saying publicly. Indeed, Swalwell went on to admit as much:
There may be a criminal referral that could take place there. They have a lot more to learn in that regard. It also matters for history, to hold the president accountable, if he did indeed incite and aim the mob at the Capitol and did nothing — it matters because Jan. 6, 2025, is not too far away. We’re going to have to do this again. If we protect and harden the Capitol against an attack like this again, we need to know what went wrong on Jan. 6, 2021.
It seems to many that nothing went “wrong” on January 6th. It was not some random coming together of events, almost like an accident. Seen from one point of view, the only thing that went “wrong” is that Mike Pence wasn’t ushered away from the Capitol. We need more information as to what Trump knew and planned ahead of time. We know that the administration focused upon Pence as the key. If Pence was not willing to do Trump’s bidding, it seems entirely possible that there would be a plan in place to get Pence out of the Capitol.
If that was the case and the Congress and DOJ could prove Trump knew of that plan, then criminal liability really comes into play. And again, Swalwell emphasized that Cheney and others may know more than they are telling.
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact with any concerns.
