No Former President Has Ever Been Criminally Referred By Congress For Prosecution. Until Now.

If you like what you’re hearing, give me a follow on Post.News at PoliticusSarah and subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss any episodes.No former president has ever been criminally referred by Congress for prosecution. Until now.“That evidence has led to an overriding and straight-forward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him,” the January 6th summary report reads.In the summer of 2021, months after a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the Democratic-led U.S. House formed an investigative committee to look into what led up to the domestic terrorist attack. Republicans often claim the panel is “partisan,” but Senate Republicans blocked the formation of bipartisan investigation. Then when the House took it up, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy tried to stick Congressional insurrectionist supporters on the panel and then refused to participate when Speaker Nancy Pelosi basically told him potential witnesses can’t investigate themselves.McCarthy would go on to ignore congressional subpoenas, along with several of his Republican colleagues, and yet soon will be in charge of issuing these same congressional subpoenas with the expectation that they are legitimate. It’s obvious that he shouldn’t have that authority since he doesn’t respect it enough to comply, but this is the modern-day Republican Party.In fact, the 1/6 Committee referred Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, and 2 other House Republicans to the Ethics Committee for sanctions for failing to comply with a lawful congressional subpoena.Still, the panel is bipartisan due to two lone Republicans with the courage to stand up to the Trump coalition destroying their party: Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill).After 17 months of investigation, including more than 1,000 interviews, 10 stunning public hearings which drew ratings “in the ballpark of big television events like a ‘Sunday Night Football’ games” and more than a million documents, a 154-page “executive summary” report was released on Monday and the conclusion was: All January 6th roads lead to Donald Trump. Without Trump, January 6th, 2021 would not have happened.Every president in American history has defended the orderly transfer of power, “except one,” Liz Cheney said. And thus, a bipartisan select committee referred Donald J. Trump on at least 4 criminal charges.This is a historic moment. A former president has never been referred for criminal charges by Congress before. The charges are at least obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, making false statements and or conspiracy to submit false statements to the government related to the fake elector scheme and assisting or aiding an insurrection.The attack on the United States Capitol was vintage Trump: It was based on repeated lies about an election he lost by over 7 million votes, yet another attempt to make image matter over reality. Trump did nothing to help lawmakers and then Vice President Pence who were under attack and whose lives were being threatened. He sat in the dining room watching the violence unfold and did nothing.New evidence offered Monday included the fact that Trump allies had invoked the fifth when asked to provide proof of their claims about a “stolen election.” Also, Trump aide Hope Hicks told the committee that Trump told her, “The only thing that matters is winning” and Ivanka Trump was identified as one of several senior White House officials whose testimony was not “entirely frank or forthcoming.”Trump’s signature mob “leadership” style was touched on again as the committee recommended that the Justice Department should look into whether Trump allies committed a criminal offense by interfering with an official proceeding due to their repeated contacts with witnesses. We first heard about witness tampering last summer, but on Monday Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) shared yet another attempt at witness tampering. Bribing or threatening or paying legal fees are all Trump-stamped ways of handling legal messes he gets into, including the Mueller investigation.“We’ve learned that a (witness) was offered potential employment that would make her, quote, ‘financially very comfortable’ as the date of her testimony approached, by entities that were apparently linked to Donald Trump and his associates. These offers were withdrawn or didn’t materialize as reports of the content of her testimony circulated. The witness believed this was an effort to affect her testimony, and we are concerned that these efforts may have been a strategy to prevent the committee from finding the truth.”Obstruction of justice might just be re-labeled “Trump Cope.”  Throughout his “career” as a lucky person, who inherited enough money to never learn how to actually conduct business, Trump has used lawyers as his personal thugs.  As soon as he took office, he continued on in the White House as he ran his property and brand rackets.The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and podcasts consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.So his henchmen interfered in the Mueller investigation. And then they interfered in the first impeachment by finally supplying what they called a transcript, but wasn’t actually a transcript but rather a memo of one of his calls with Ukrainian President Zelensky (Trump claimed there was a second call that he implied had taped but this was never released).  That call, attempting to extort Zelensky to manufacture dirt on Trump’s Democratic rival Joe Biden, led to his first impeachment.We also see Trump’s penchant for obstruction in the lies he told in response to a subpoena about the top secret documents he stole and lied about having and then lied about returning. Obstruct obstruct obstruct. That is how Trump has escaped justice his entire life.Has that finally come to an end?Trump refused to appear to the committee to defend himself, although he regularly claims that they shut him out, he was actually invited to speak via a subpoena, which he sued the committee over - and again, obstructed. Trump did not show up. His lawyers claimed "absolute testimonial immunity,” which is not a thing for a violent coup that was not related to Trump’s duties as President.The committee was very careful to not allow Trumpworld to use the committee’s televised hearings to spread further propaganda, and this frustrated some witnesses who claimed that they weren’t allowed to tell their side.  But, it’s likely Trump has always known he can refuse to speak on the record when it could have consequences, while telling his cult a completely different story, and they will continue to pay him.Trump said in response on Truth Social, “These folks don’t get it that when they come after me, people who love freedom rally around me.  It strengthens me. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”Trump supporters have not only committed violence for him, but they have threatened a Civil War if he is prosecuted. In this light, we not only need some entity of our government to finally stand up to Trump and his vigilante militia of criminals, but we also need to examine his consistent enablers, including the quiet ones.Senator Mitch McConnell said at Trump’s second impeachment trial over this violent self-coup attack, “There’s no question—none—that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” He repeated this sentiment yesterday saying, “The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day. Beyond that, I don’t have any immediate observations.”Lest we get the false notion that Republicans have found a spine just because they didn’t rally to the defense of the man who just hurt them politically in the midterms, revealing his own weakness as a party leader, McConnell has failed to be accountable for his no vote against conviction of Trump for the exact same insurrection. At the time, McConnell claimed some kind of made-up exception having to do with the fact that it was January and soon Trump wouldn’t be in office, so impeachment was irrelevant. That, of course, is almost as flimsy as his excuse for refusing to bring President Obama’s Supreme Court Justice up for a vote for almost a full year.Mitch McConnell punted Donald Trump’s alleged crimes upon his own country. McConnell didn’t feel compelled to do his basic duty to protect this country and her people by voting to convict on something he clearly knows happened and holds Trump responsible for. That failure has led to more violence and more threats. It has kept the door open for Trump to run again. It has put all of the burden on the Biden Department of Justice, when it could have been done at that second impeachment.After all of the evidence and 17 months of investigation, Liz Cheney pronounced Trump “unfit for any office.” But Mike Pence, whose life was threatened, told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer he hopes they don’t bring charges against Trump because it would be “terribly divisive."In reality, it would be divisive not to bring charges and it would embolden the use of terrorism to achieve political ends. A coup trying to steal the votes of millions of people is “divisive.” It is wrong to treat it as something people should just get over.Speaker Pelosi said in a statement sent to PoliticusUSA of the criminal referrals, “With painstaking detail, this executive s