The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff made unusually sharp comments about a member in President Biden's Cabinet. He stated that he strongly disagrees with Attorney General MerrickGarlands failure to aggressively investigate former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 elections.
On Tuesday's Yahoo News Skullduggery podcast the California Democrat was interviewed about the Garland Justice Departments reluctance in launching investigations into the former president based upon the 2018 report of Robert Mueller, former special counsel. This document detailed Trumps attempts to obstruct an investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election. Schiff wrote in Midnight in Washington: The Story of How We Nearly Lost Our Democracy, that Mueller's report provided him with a basis for charging Trump with multiple obstruction crimes.
Schiff responded that he believes there is a genuine desire on the part the attorney general to not look backwards. That is something I do not agree with. Do I agree with that? A taped conversation between Donald J. Trump and Brad Raffensperger (the secretary of state from Georgia), in which he tried to persuade him to fraudulently find 11,780 votes.
Schiff said that Schiff was right in saying that Schiff and I would be under arrest if we did that. You can't ignore crimes committed by the presidents of the United States. These crimes must be investigated. Once you have investigated the matter, the public interest in not prosecuting an ex-president may outweigh the interests of justice. However, I do not believe you can ignore the crimes.
Schiff's comments were made as the Jan.6 select committee, of whom he is a part, was prepared to vote Tuesday night in favor of holding former Trump aide Steve Bannon, along with his advisers, in contempt for refusing a subpoena to him for testimony and documents relating his conversations with Trump as well as his efforts to block Congress from certifying the Electoral College results that Joe Biden received last November. Bannon's lawyer said that his client was refusing to cooperate with the request of the former president on the ground that any advice Bannon provided was confidential and protected by executive privilege.
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Schiff stated that Bannon's claims were unfounded and that if the committee votes to hold Bannon responsible, he expects to ask the House to vote to refer Bannon to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Schiff stated that the speaker will be referring to the Justice Department. According to statute, the Justice Department is required to present the evidence to the grand jury. This duty is not always met. There are positive signs that this duty will be fulfilled. It is absolutely necessary.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) at a House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6, attack on Capitol. (Jim Lo Scalzo–Pool/Getty Images).
He said that there are strong indications that the Justice Department will be taking this seriously. Bannon's case does not contain any colorable claim to privilege. By the time we are referring to the events, he was already long out of the administration. He can't simply say, "I'm gonna refuse" to appear.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond when Schiff made comments about Garland and his claim that there were positive signs the Justice Department would pursue criminal prosecutions of Bannon. Schiff, the House's lead prosecutor in the Trump impeachment trial, stated that he was most concerned by the Justice Department's lack of prosecutorial zeal regarding the former president.
He suggested that maybe Im wrong, and that Justice is secretly gathering evidence from a grand jury into Trump's attempts to press Georgia state officials to reverse the election results that favor Biden. He fears that Garland and his top aides will rely on Fulton County District attorney Fani T. Williams, who has publicly confirmed her own investigation.
They may be counting on Fulton County DA justice to get the job done. I don't think that is the right way to look at the scale of their effort to reverse the election.
Attorney General Merrick Garland. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Schiff also raised the question as to why Trump's former president isn't being prosecuted for violating the election laws in 2016. In 2016, Cohen paid funds to Cohen, his former lawyer, to enable Cohen to pay off a former pornstar to silence about a long-ago sex tryst with Trump.
Indictment was also filed in the Southern District New York against No. 1 coordinated and directed a campaign fraud scheme, according to Schiff. The Justice Department claimed that Michael Cohen, who coordinated and directed the scheme, should be in jail.
What's the argument for the guy who coordinated and directed the event? In light of Nixon's pardon, my view is that the Justice Department has taken a position that you can't charge a sitting president. I disagree with this to say that in practice you can't charge a former president.
That's a very dangerous proposition. It's even more dangerous considering that Trump is running for President again.
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