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| credit: Ramirez BC Idonwanna sez: They call it the Trumpenburg.... |
Two moves indicating the Special Counsel may be getting serious about indicting Herr Trumpillini: Jack Smith asked the chief judge of the DC Federal District Court to order the identification by name of the investigators the Trump legal team hired to search for classified papers in places other than Mar-a-Lago. The judge promptly so ordered. The other move was to appoint two DOJ prosecutors who specialize in public corruption prosecutions to his team of twenty lawyers. His office still does not have a permanent location to set up shop even after the 2nd anniversary of the Insurrection.
Two factors may inhibit the Special Prosecutors from bring a conspiracy case against Trump: his cynical habit of using oblique language to communicate orders to underlings, and his understandable aversion to electronic devices. The January 6th Committee showed he pushed the fake elector scheme forward and was in the communication loop about progress, including a phone call to RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. A memo of December 9th outlined the plan, and a group of legal advisors that included Wisconsin state Judge Jim Troupis and lawyer Kenneth Cheesebro put it into action. But by December 11th after the Supreme Court refused to hear a last-ditch petition from team Trump, top election officials began to distance themselves from the machinations to keep the "boss" in office.
Often a successful conspiracy prosecution rests on the willingness of top conspirators to testify against their colleagues. DOJ's mafia prosecutions often took the route (See e.g., Joseph Valachi). Without an individual of the inner circle willing to testify, the kingpin could escape conviction. In this case former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who successfully evaded attempts to obtain his testimony before the Select Committee, appears to be the key figure. White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that both Meadows and Giuliani were early participants in the fake elector gambit. According to her, Meadows regularly burned papers in his office fireplace between December 2020 and January 2021.
Jack Smith has been given a massive amount of admissible evidence of a highest-level conspiracy to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States that ended in mob violence at the Capitol. Select Committee members referred Trump to DOJ for criminal prosecution on three counts, unanimously. Smith has at his disposal legal tools to compel testimony the Select Committee did not. If he fails to bring a prosecution, the ramifications for the Republic will be enormously damaging, and perhaps beyond recovery.