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There is yin and yang to accountability for the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
Pushing toward justice, some of the people who planned and conducted the riot are going to jail for the serious crime of seditious conspiracy. And the universe of people convicted for trying to undermine the 2020 election grows.
Pulling in another direction, former President Donald Trump, the person who inspired the Capitol riot and tried to undo the election, is growing stronger as the odds-on frontrunner to be the Republican nominee for president next year.
If you’re wondering how it would be possible for the federal government to prosecute the person who is one of two main people with a chance to lead it, you’ve hit on the unanswerable and unprecedented question that could cause so much chaos as the republic prepares to consider transferring power again.
The Department of Justice has moved methodically but very slowly as it brings increasingly serious cases against riot ringleaders.
That means that as special counsel Jack Smith considers what, if any, charges the government should bring against Trump for events surrounding the 2020 election, he will have to contend with the reality of the former president’s political power.
Most Republicans – 73% in one recent CBS News poll – would consider Trump as their nominee; should they have that right to vote him into office in a free republic? Or should charges, if they are warranted, be brought anyway, even years after the fact?
There was not enough political support to bar Trump from office through an impeachment trial when he was president. Would things be different in a criminal trial?
Juries have shown a willingness to find people guilty of the…
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