As federal prosecutors increasingly use an obscure criminal charge to jail Jan. 6 insurrectionists, congressional investigators seem to be building a case that could result in that same charge against former President Donald Trump.
A third of the 700 people arrested by the Justice Department for attacking the U.S. Capitol building have been hit with a peculiar federal “witness tampering” law, according to researchers at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Those 240 insurrectionists have been charged with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, a never-before-seen tactic by prosecutors for an equally unprecedented event.
So far, 12 have pleaded guilty, and three of those have already been sentenced. But if hundreds of people face prison time for interrupting Congress while it was certifying the 2020 election results, what happens to the president who ordered them to march there?
While the DOJ pursues the rioters, the special House Jan. 6 Committee is separately collecting evidence to formulate a picture about how this all came together. And legal scholars say a strategy is taking shape—one that builds a case to criminally charge the former president.