Donald Trump’s legal exposure is partly tied to his political success: Winning the presidential election is his best legal strategy for fighting his criminal cases.
A haunting video shown at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Wednesday night was a stark reminder of what that means when it comes to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, both for Trump’s own criminal case and Jan. 6 defendants more broadly.
The video, which spotlights the Trump-inspired violence of that day, runs just under four minutes and is worth watching:
More than serving as a reminder (important in its own right), the video underscores how Trump, if elected, will be empowered not only to crush his own federal election interference case but to pardon the rioters he inspired to storm the Capitol. Specifically, it enumerated the four counts the GOP presidential nominee is charged with in his Washington, D.C., indictment: conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy against rights, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding. (Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies any wrong-doing.)
Now, I began this post by noting that Trump’s legal exposure is partly tied to his political success, because the Supreme Court has already given him a head start. In Trump v. United States last month, the Republican-appointed majority rendered at least some of Trump’s conduct immune from prosecution; the extent of that immunity is still being litigated and won’t likely be fully resolved before the election. In another Jan. 6–related ruling this past term, Fischer v. United States, the court narrowed obstruction charges against Jan. 6 defendants, which could affect the obstruction-related counts against Trump, too. As with the immunity issue, the extent to which it does so remains to be seen. So if Trump loses in November, it’s still an open question what will be left of his Jan. 6–related indictment. If he wins, we may never know the answer. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for updates and expert analysis on the top legal stories. The newsletter will return to its regular weekly schedule when the Supreme Court’s next term kicks off in October.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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