Two Big Stories Just Broke Over January 6. And Donald Trump Can't Be Happy About Either.

[Nevilledog]

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Jay Kuo
@nycjayjay
The two bombshells around January 6 landed last night and this morning along with contempt referrals for key Trump acolytes. A judge’s finding of likely criminal violations by Trump and big gaps in the White House call log in today’s update.

statuskuo.substack.com
Two Big Stories Just Broke Over January 6. And Donald Trump Can’t Be Happy About Either.
There are two major developments in the investigation of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Both are bad news for the former president and his aides. The stories are connected in the...
9:34 AM · Mar 29, 2022

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/two-big-stories-just-broke-over-january?s=r

There are two major developments in the investigation of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Both are bad news for the former president and his aides. The stories are connected in the larger sense, but it’s worth unpacking them separately.

A federal court ruled that Trump likely committed felonies.

The first bombshell came from a federal judge overseeing the dispute over claims of privileged documents between one-time Trump attorney John Eastman and the January 6 Committee. As reported by The New York Times, Judge David Carter handed the Committee a strong win by ordering most of the withheld documents produced. Importantly, he found that former president Trump more likely than not committed the crimes of obstruction of the work of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

This is the first time in history that a judge has determined that a U.S. president likely has broken the law. Judge Carter made the ruling in the context of a civil matter for which he was required to assess whether the “crime-fraud” exception to attorney-client privilege applied—that is, whether a preponderance (i.e. more than fifty percent) of the evidence showed that the former president was engaged in illegal behavior that undid the normal protection of attorney-client privilege between himself and counsel.

“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” wrote Judge Carter. “Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections. Ignoring this history, President Trump vigorously campaigned for the vice president to single-handedly determine the results of the 2020 election.” The actions by Trump and Eastman, he observed, were “a coup in search of a legal theory.”

*snip*

[Marius25]

1. I doubt Trump cares since he's gotten away with everything else.

He knows he'll never face a day in jail.

[Irish_Dem]

2. I agree.

[Hoyt]

3. trump probably figures "likely" won't get him convicted. "Beyond reasonable doubt," would be better

[global1]

4. I Agree....

'likely' is the word that TFG will focus on with the judge's comments.

Also - on the missing phone records. Hey - they're missing. TFG's people did a good job on those phone records.

[RockRaven]

5. He'd have to be prosecuted to even be at risk of being convicted. And there is no reason to

believe that he is going to be prosecuted.

[MissMillie]

6. the word "likely" gets Eastman's emails released.

At this point, that is all it does.

But, to some extent getting the emails released is a big deal.

The emails may be damaging.

The other things is that there are going to be more appeals on getting these emails released... getting a reasonably quick ruling on this is helpful.

[Hoyt]

7. Yeah, the emails MAY BE damaging. If not, we'll hear that all the emails weren't released . . . . .

[panader0]

8. Isn't the fact that the e-mails are missing damaging by itself?

[Hoyt]

9. Damaging, yes to some degree. But hardly evidence, useful in court.