Trump could be hit with ‘seditious conspiracy’ charge, former US attorney suggests

A former federal prosecutor has suggested that former President Donald Trump could be charged with seditious conspiracy for his role in the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021.

Former US Attorney Barbara McQuade told MSNBC on Monday that “there is a crime making it illegal to corruptly impede or obstruct an official proceeding, which includes proceedings before Congress”.

She was referring to the congressional certification of the 2020 election that was delayed by the insurrection.

“If he had the power to stop that riot from happening and to permit the vote to go forward, his failure to do that could be that effort to corruptly obstruct the official proceeding,” she added.

Ms McQuade noted how Mr Trump acted when the insurrection was ongoing.

“We’ve got this 187 minutes when he sat and did nothing, despite the fact that he knew that this violence and disruption was occurring. Is it because it was all part of a larger plan?” she said, later suggesting that Mr Trump could be charged with other crimes in addition to obstruction.

“I think we could also look at conspiracy to defraud the United States – that just means trying to impede the normal functioning of government – all the way up to seditious conspiracy, which is a conspiracy to oppose by force the authority of the United States,” Ms McQuade said. “And so I think all of those potential crimes are in play.”

MississippiDemocratic Representative Bennie Thompson chairs the House Select Committee investigating 6 January.

“The president was told, ‘You need to say directly to your people to go home, leave the Capitol.’ And so it took over 187 minutes to make that simple statement. Something’s wrong with that,” Mr Thompson told on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

“We know as he was sitting there in the dining room next to the Oval Office, members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television to tell people to stop,” Republican Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, the vice-chair of the committee, said on ABC’s This Week on Sunday.

“We have first-hand testimony that his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence,” she added.

According to Mr Thompson, the committee is looking at the possibility of issuing subpoenas to Republican members of Congress to force them to cooperate.

“I think there are some questions of whether we have the authority to do it,” Mr Thompson told NBC. “We’re looking at it. If the authorities are there, there’ll be no reluctance on our part.”

Several people close to Mr Trump, including Fox News hosts, urged him to appear on TV and tell his supporters to cease their siege on the Capitol. The then-president took hours before he published a recorded statement.

The committee sent a letter to Ohio Representative and Trump ally Jim Jordan on 22 December, asking him to testify about his phone conversations with Mr Trump on 6 January. Two days earlier, the committee sent a similar letter to Republican Pennsylvania Representative Scott Perry.

Ms McQuade added that she thinks “there’s nothing that would prevent Congress from issuing subpoenas to members of Congress and courts from enforcing them”.

“I could imagine them arguing some of the same arguments that we’ve heard before, about invoking executive privilege, but as members of the legislative branch, that really doesn’t fly,” she added. “I think they could invoke the speech or debate clause, which allows them to say things freely on the floor of the Congress, but it has an exception for felonies or breach of the peace, which would seem to be dead on here.”

“It seems like the only thing they could use to prevent their own testimony is to invoke their fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination,” she said. “I think the committee is trying to get voluntary cooperation as a courtesy, but it sounds like Chairman Thompson is absolutely willing to issue subpoenas if they refuse.”