Attorney General Merrick Garland
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Attorney General Merrick Garland has not closed the door on possibly charging Trump over Jan. 6.
Garland told NBC News that Trump’s possible 2024 candidacy would not affect his decision.
Legal and political experts are mixed on whether they think Trump will be federally indicted.
A 2024 Trump campaign would not necessarily protect the former president from federal charges in connection to the January 6 Capitol attack, US Attorney General Merrick Garland told NBC News this week.
Garland made the remarks in an exclusive interview with anchor Lester Holt on “NBC Nightly News” in a segment scheduled to air in full on Tuesday evening at 6:30 p.m. ET.
In an exchange from the interview shared early on social media, Holt pressed the attorney general on whether Donald Trump’s possible candidacy in the next presidential election would impact the Justice Department’s investigation into the insurrection.
“Look, we pursue justice without fear or favor. We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6, for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable, that’s what we do,” Garland said. “We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.”
—NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) July 26, 2022
When Holt pushed for more specificity, Garland doubled down.
“I’ll say again, that we will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer — legitimate, lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next.”
Trump told his allies recently that part of the draw of holding the nation’s top seat again would be the legal immunity it provides, according to a Rolling Stone report published earlier this month.
Garland’s comments come on the heels of eight public hearings full of bombshell witness testimony presented by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Legal and political experts thus far are mixed on whether they expect Trump to be indicted.
The choice of whether or not to charge Trump will ultimately fall to Garland who will have to weigh the optics of indicting a former president in a politically polarized country, Robert Weisberg, a criminal law professor at Stanford University previously told Insider. But even if Garland does conclude that he has a potentially winnable case, he could still forgo charges, thanks to prosecutorial discretion.
“Maybe people will think he shouldn’t make that decision, but he has the legal power not to prosecute even if he has a legal basis for prosecution,” Weisberg said.
In his NBC interview, Garland also touched on the possibility of the Jan. 6 panel issuing a criminal referral. The committee has yet to decide whether it will issue one, but Rep. Liz Cheney, who serves as vice-chair of the committee, said earlier this month that the panel could potentially make multiple criminal referrals, including one against Trump.
Garland told the outlet that a referral would be welcomed by the Justice Department, but added that the act has little concrete legal effect and serves as more of a symbolic measure.
“That’s not to downgrade it or to or disparage it. It’s just that that’s not what, that’s not the issue here,” he said. “We have our own investigation, pursuing through the principles of prosecution.”