Pay attention, Justin Price
Rep.
Liz Cheney delivered two clear warnings Tuesday. One was to Donald Trump aides
and allies who conspired with him to violently overthrow our government. The
second was to those who merely observed these crimes but refuse to tell what
they know.
This and Price's other January 6 tweets are proof of his
criminal involvment with the attempted coup
The
first message: the game is up because the J6 committee has the goods on Trump’s
conspiracy, the coverup and the witness tampering so it’s time to either rat
out Donald to save your own skin or give up any hope of leniency when
indictments are handed out.
The
second message: there’s no legitimate public reason to hold back information if
you were a bystander, an observer, but if you do nothing your reputation will
be trashed, you will be forever branded a cowardice and you just might
get indicted for failure to report traitorous conduct ,itself a crime called
misprision of a felony.
 |
| LOCK HIM UP! |
The lawyers could
be as drunk as Rudy Giuliani and they would still get the messages.
Cheney,
that rare Republican who has not surrendered her soul to Trump, put two
messages on a big screen at the end of Tuesday’s hearing. The texts showed
witness tampering, something Trump has done all his life as the late great
Wayne Barrett documented three decades ago.
The
terrifying part for conspirators who still cling to Donald was that no names
were shown on the big screen, a move sure to spread paranoia and suspicion
among the conspirators.
Conspiracy
law is designed to help law enforcement drive a wedge between criminals.
Criminal defense lawyers are for sure asking their clients this question: Which
do you prefer, prison for you or for Donald?
In
the cold calculus of criminal law, conspirators who get to prosecutors first
with solid evidence and who come clean, really clean, may be able to cut deals saving
them from much if any prison time. Even if they can’t avoid prison, they may be
able to negotiate agreements on how long and where they will serve their time.
Witness
tampering is a charge that prosecutors love to include in a conspiuracy case
because it shows mens rea – criminal intent. If
you are actualoly innocent why would you try to prevent witnesses from telling
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
No
Going Back
For
some of Trump’s traitors it’s too late. Like Dante, they stare at the sign
above the gates of Hell: abandon hope all ye who enter
here. Among those are Giuliani and Mike Flynn, the disgraced general
who was on at least two Kremlin-connected payrolls, one direct, the other
surreptious.
During
a video deposition, snippets of which were played at the Tuesday hearing,
Cheney asked Flynn an anodyne question that any loyal American immediately
would answer with one word: Yes.
Cheney
asked Flynn if he supported the peaceful transition of power from one
administration to the next. Flynn exercised his Fifth Amendment right against
self-incrimination.
Flynn’s response, his lawyer at his side, makes perfect sense only if you are a traitor who participated in Trump’s failed coup d’état.
But
for others who conspired, or watched and failed to act, there is still hope.
A
legal tool can be used to persuade those foolishly loyal to Trump to tell the
truth even if all they did was observe the coup plotting and execution of that
incompetent but still dangerous attempt to overthrow our democracy.
Title
18 Section 4, known as misprision of a felony, provides that “having
knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the
United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to
some judge or other person in civil or military authority under ther United
States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years,
or both.
Misprision—note
the third “i” in that word—means “the deliberate concealment
of one’s knowledge of a treasonable act or a felony.” That’s what a coup
is: treason. But there are many other crimes that the Justice Department can
file against the Trump conspirators.
The
Only Issue
The
issue before Attorney General Merrick Garland, thanks to work his people should
have done but that the J6 committee did instead, is no longer whether there is
a criminal case to be made against Donald Trump. The issue isn’t even, as some
former federal prosecutors keep saying, whether Trump should be indicted.
The
only issue is how to frame the case against Trump and his co-conspirators. As
prosecutors often say, you file the case you can win, not the case you want to
file.
Part
of that framing is how to break up the conspiracy; how to get the rats to turn
on each other.
Its
clear from search warrant affidavits and subpoenas that Garland has an active
criminal investigation or multiple investigations underway.
The
real question how is how far flung will the indictments be and will our Justice
Department bring a clear, simple and direct case against the man who would be
our dictator.
David
Cay Johnston is the Editor-in-Chief of DCReport. He is an investigative
journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of
the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.
