DECEMBER 17, 2022
Above, former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event at his Mar-a-Lago home on November 15 in Palm Beach, Florida. – Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner predicted that former President Donald Trump might get up to 25 years in prison for committing offenses related to last year’s Capitol riot, after the House select committee investigating the attack decided to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier this month.
When asked during an interview on MSNBC’s The ReidOut on Friday about whether or not referrals have value, Kirshner said they did.
“The Department of Justice prides itself on exercising independent prosecutorial discretion but they can’t turn a blind eye to a coequal branch of government that has done such an exhaustive investigation when they pass all of that evidence over to [the] DOJ and they recommend criminal investigations and prosecutions,” he said.
The select committee is expected on Monday to consider a report reflecting possible criminal charges against Trump, two people familiar with the matter told Politico.
Some of the recommendations were made by a subcommittee that assessed potential criminal referrals. Proposed charges against the former president include insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to defraud the United States government, according to Politico.
“It is great that they’re talking about obstructing official proceedings, that’s a 20-year offense. It’s great that they are talking about conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, that’s a 5-year offense,” Kirschner said Friday.
The select committee didn’t mention who will be on the referral list and for what offenses. Meanwhile, the decision over criminal referrals was not confirmed in the past because the panel was divided on whether or not to pursue such a move against Trump.
Though a referral doesn’t necessarily carry legal weight, it could still be threatening to the former president, according to experts.
“Although the DOJ is independent, such a referral is more than symbolic,” Ion Meyn, an assistant law professor at the University of Wisconsin, told Newsweek earlier this month. “A referral from a congressional committee that has conducted its own investigation is particularly influential. The referral would place significant pressure on the DOJ to prosecute, and the DOJ will be expected to justify any decision to decline the referral.”
Though Trump could face prison time if convicted for the alleged offenses related to the Capitol riot, Kirshner said that being prosecuted for insurrection is important.
“The important one….is insurrection…because the available sentence if you’re convicted of insurrection unlike those other charges is that you shall be prohibited from holding office under the United States. That quite frankly is the one I am rooting for,” he added.
Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results after the former president said he lost due to widespread voter fraud without any evidence supporting those claims. The select committee’s investigation aims to determine whether or not Trump played a role that day in disrupting the certification of a Joe Biden victory.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Merrick Garland hasn’t brought criminal charges against Trump. However, the former president is already facing other criminal investigations, including the DOJ’s probe into his mishandling of highly classified documents that were recovered by the FBI in August from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said that he declassified those documents before removing them from the White House.
On Saturday morning, the former president took to his social media platform Truth Social to rant about the FBI, DOJ, and Democrats, describing them as “cancer” killing America.
“Our Country is SICK inside, very much like a person dying of Cancer. The Crooked FBI, the so-called Department of “Justice,” and “Intelligence,” all parts of the Democrat Party and System, is the Cancer. These Weaponized Thugs and Tyrants must be dealt with, or our once great and beautiful Country will die!!!” he wrote.
The former president said in another post on Saturday: “THEY ARE GOING AFTER ME BECAUSE THEY ARE REALLY GOING AFTER YOU!”
Newsweek reached out to Kirschner and Trump’s media office for comment.
Courtesy/Source: Newsweek
