On Mar 3, the House Select Committee filed a 230-page briefing with the Court, stating former President Donald Trump “may have committed crimes or fraud to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.” Republicans are now pushing back, warning that prosecution of former President Trump will turn into a political battle.
MSNBC’s Jessica Levinson said of the filing: “This is big…This is a bombshell…we got some legitimately consequential news this week concerning former President Donald Trump and his legal troubles… This means that the legal hot water Trump finds himself in is nearing a boil. Remember, though, that there isn’t a direct line from there to seeing Trump in a jumpsuit. There are a lot of steps in between.”
Republicans are trying to put the brakes on media and government leaders who seem to believe that Trump is guilty until proven innocent.
Lawmakers are warning Pelosi, the Jan 6 Select Committee, and the Biden administration that any federal prosecution of Trump will “turn into a partisan food fight” and undermine President Biden’s attempts to “keep his 2020 campaign promise to unify the country,” according to The Hill.
Noting the hyper-partisan feel of the Select Committee, Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) said any criminal referral “would probably have as much political taint on it as you can get.”
“To me, it’s clearly politically driven… “At least half the country would say it’s all politically motivated,” he said.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) agreed with Braun and also raised concerns over the partisan fighting surrounding the Jan 6 committee. Regarding the evidence threshold the Justice Department must reach before bringing charges against Trump, Tillis said, “the Department of Justice has a high bar” to clear before launching an investigation of Trump.”
The Committee has been viewed as fiercely partisan from the beginning, since Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) blocked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) recommendations to serve on the “bi-partisan” Committee.
The partisan make-up of the Committee has put objectivity, if not the pursuit of justice, in doubt. Sen. Tillis said, “I don’t mind looking into the events, but I think that Speaker Pelosi did not do the process justice by the way the members were ultimately seated. It’s going to be perceived as political.”
Tillis added: “Everybody is going to perceive the referral as a conviction on one side and they’re going to view it as the continuation of a witch hunt on the other side. The bar that the House committee has is far lower than anything that would ultimately result in moving forward with a federal investigation and a conviction.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told The Hill Thursday that any recommendation to prosecute from the House Select Committee would lack credibility.
“I don’t see anything coming out of this Committee not tainted by politics,” he said.
According to The Hill, “Republican strategists close to Trump are predicting a battle royale if the Department of Justice moves to indict the former president.”
Republican pollster Jim McLaughlin said, “I think it could backfire in a way that they have no clue. I think it’s going to backfire because it just so political and it’s tainted.”
McLaughlin added: “The country wants to move on. Nobody is proud of what happened on Jan 6 but people are like, ‘With all the problems we have going on in the country right now, this is going to be the focus of the Democrats?'”
Republicans also warn that any federal prosecution of Trump will likely be answered by congressional investigations of Biden and his son Hunter if Republicans take over the House and possibly the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.
“I wonder if they’re ever going to file charges against Hillary Clinton for what she did after 2016,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who would become the chairman of the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security Committee if the control of the chamber flips.
Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, said a prosecution “will only make Trump stronger with the GOP primary voters.”
“If your goal is to make sure Donald Trump is the nominee in 2024 for the Republicans, then, by all means, proceed with this. You’re just going to make him stronger,” he said.
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