Hello, Deadline: Legal Blog readers!
I’m excited to report that I had the chance to interview Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on Friday. During our call, I asked the former House Jan. 6 committee member about the insurrection, Donald Trump’s legal troubles, the Supreme Court and the fate of democracy. While those are all technically distinct subjects, I think our conversation shows that they’re really all one thread.
The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Trump, the ‘one-man crime wave’
Jordan Rubin: Obviously, you believe that there’s a good case that Donald Trump and others have committed federal crimes. What would it mean if charges did not ultimately come?
Rep. Jamie Raskin: Even before entertaining that hypothetical challenge, I’d rather focus on the idea that it’s almost inevitable that there will be charges, because the evidence is just so overwhelming.
Interference with a federal proceeding — in this case, the joint session of Congress, counting Electoral College votes — was not only the crime, but it was the whole point of “Stop the Steal.” That was Donald Trump’s complete and obvious and naked intent to get people to go in and interfere with the counting of votes and to stop it, delay it, postpone it by any means necessary. So that just seems completely straightforward. And that’s just one of the referrals.
We think there will be charges probably on some things we didn’t even have, because we don’t have all of the prosecutorial resources that the Department of Justice has, and so we think they probably collected a lot more evidence than we got.
Now, if he were to somehow escape the grasp of the criminal justice system here, this would be a painful thing for the country and for millions and millions of people who have held on to the idea that we have one system of justice. And it doesn’t make sense that more than 900 people can be charged and prosecuted and convicted and sentenced for things like assaulting federal…
Read the full article here
