The Congressional investigations of the January 6 Capitol Hill riots have been generating new controversies, with a lot of new names surfacing.
With big names coming out of the probe, including Steve Bannon and Mark Meadows, the breathing room for Donald Trump is congesting with each passing day.
Trump’s Right Hand Men Trying to Shield Him
Recently the US House voted against Mark Meadows, the Chief of Staff of Donald Trump, for contempt of Congress. Now he will be prosecuted by the Department of Justice. If proven guilty, he could serve a one-year jail term.
Meadows’ behavior can easily be used against him. Initially, he disclosed a lot of records in front of Congress.
He tried to cooperate with the legislature, indicating that he might try to help Congress by giving insights nobody else has.
However, the shift in paradigm happened when his own provided records started providing evidence against him. With a bleak future in sight, he decided to shield himself from the legal authority by trying to hide under the executive privilege of not showing some White House records.
Thus, Congress decided to sue him using its authority, making him the second official of the Trump administration to be referred to the Justice Department. Before him, Steve Bannon was referred to the DOJ.
Among the records given to the House by Meadows included the landmark presentation reported to be the key to the January 6 siege.
Many people have already started comparing the presentation with the” smoking gun” tape of the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of Richard Nixon.
The presentation, named “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference, and Options for JAN 6,” had enough material populated in its 36 slides giving recommendations to Trump to stop the declaration of victory to Biden.
As this presentation is already with the House, the DOJ can get much substance from it in order to prosecute Meadows, who has now refused to cooperate.
US Congress Must not Ignore Obvious Things in the Capitol Hill Investigation
However, all of the investigations must continue the pursuit of the former president as his speech and social media statuses were alone enough to mobilize a mob that was already set to attack the building. This group was being fed lies continuously over the last few months.
Some facts are as clear in the case as they could get. The inquiry should be to find the helping hands of Donald Trump and not to find out if the former president was really involved in perpetuating the violence.
Ahead of the 2020 elections, a controversy on the integrity of the election was established, with Trump persistently making rhetoric protesting the evidence of voter fraud.
Thus for anyone, it was easy to guess that he would channel his rhetoric into action at the last moment, which came in the form of the January 6 riots.
When Trump started coercing different governors, secretaries of state, the Supreme Court, Department of Justice, and even the Vice President into overturning election results, the January 6 attack did not come as a surprise.
Even if Congress fails to reach a conclusion due to various tactics being played out by potential criminals, it must not stop Congress from putting the blame of the whole episode on Donald Trump’s shoulders.
Final Thoughts
Due to legal complications, the US House has been facing too many roadblocks in the January 6 probe.
When the committee subpoenaed Roger Stone, a former right-hand man of Donald Trump, to investigate him for the event, he pleaded the fifth amendment, noting that he had the constitutional right to do so.
Anyone who does this refuses to answer the questions in criminal investigation, as allowed by the fifth amendment in the US Constitution. Stone believed that Democrats are using the platform as a tool for political prosecution.
Eli is a Political Data Scientist with over thirty years of experience in Data Engineering, Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Eli uses his expertise to give the latest information and distinctive analysis on US Political News, US Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Racial Justice equipping readers with the inequivalent knowledge.