The January 6th Committee Prepares To Move Into Phase Two Of Its Investigation

     2022 needs to be the year the GOP is finally held accountable, and it's off to a promising start. The phony audits in Arizona and Wisconsin are being flipped on their heads. Matt Gaetz's ex-girlfriend testified against him in a federal sex trafficking probe. OAN was dropped by DirecTV, the source of 90 percent of its viewership, effectively rendering it dead. Mike Lindell was dropped by multiple banks because of reputation risks, worsening his poor financial situation. Civil lawsuits against Donald Trump and far-right groups like the Oath Keepers were allowed to proceed, the latter entity facing a very real possibility of being bankrupted, and Oath Keepers have been indicted on the first sedition charges of the U.S. Capitol insurrection. Donald Trump is facing criminal charges related to the phone call he made to interfere with the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. A group of activists from North Carolina are working on preventing Madison Cawthorn, who was divorced by his wife in December, from running for office this year (more on that later). Marjorie Taylor Greene was finally kicked off of Twitter after a year in Congress.

     The big new developments are nearly too many to count. Let's start with the fraudulent electors, those who claimed to be the electors for their states in an attempt to give Joe Biden's electoral votes to Donald Trump. It has been revealed that these fraudulent electors worked in at least seven states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico. In Pennsylvania and New Mexico, they may be spared prosecution because they never actually claimed to be the electors for their states. They merely made themselves available to be electors: still unethical, still a cancer to democracy, but maybe not criminal. Pennsylvania's attorney general, Democrat Josh Shapiro, is concluding his investigation, while New Mexico's attorney general, Democrat Hector Balderas, has announced he may yet refer the electors from his state for criminal charges. Wisconsin's attorney general, Democrat Josh Kaul, has referred his state's electors to the Department of Justice for federal charges, while Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has gone a step further, referring the electors to the DOJ while also pursuing state charges that could put at least 16 people in prison for up to 19 years each. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, has not spoken publicly about this, nor have the Republican Attorneys General of Georgia and Arizona, Christopher Carr and Mark Brnovich, respectively. We need to pressure Ford to launch an investigation, then Carr and Brnovich, and then, finally Merrick Garland. At least five of these states have included almost identical fraud on official federal documents: there is no way this doesn't fall under federal jurisdiction. While a minimum of 59 people could be charged with forgery and conspiracy, there are almost certainly more. One fraudulent elector was questioned by the Arizona Republic, the same paper that exposed and sank the Cyber Ninjas "audit," told the reporter to talk to the Arizona Republican Party's chair. This is big, and it shows that the 2020-21 coup attempt was beyond January 6th: it went to the Oregon State Capitol, the Georgia Secretary of State's Office, the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, the White House itself, and on and on.

     The January 6th Committee has interviewed hundreds of people since its ceremonial first hearing on July 28th, 2021. Since then, most of the work has been done behind the scenes. People from every level of government and every Trump-supporting organization have been subpoenaed, major cellular companies have handed over thousands of pages of documents (resulting in the revelations in December about FOX News hosts), and more. In the past week, Eric Trump's cell phone records have been subpoenaed, as have Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trump's inner circle, and Ivanka Trump has been asked to testify. There are only two options here: the committee has said it may not need Donald Trump's testimony, and, if not, it will finish its subpoena work by Valentine's Day. If it does want his testimony, it will soon ask for it: his family has already been compelled to provide evidence, and there is nowhere higher to go. With the end of this first phase weeks away, Steve Bannon having been indicted for contempt of Congress and Mark Meadows needing to be indicted by the DOJ, a second phase is taking shape. This phase will see those who have been subpoenaed give more public testimony, and it will secure the evidence needed to deliver a final report. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court blocked Donald Trump's executive privilege request, paving the way for hundreds of pages of White House records from January 6th to be released. This is all the more reason for the DOJ to indict Mark Meadows: if the president doesn't have executive privilege in this matter, his adviser doesn't, either. Kevin McCarthy has talked tough about disbanding the January 6th investigation should the GOP take the House in November. Even if this occurs, it appears the committee will be ready to release its report by the second anniversary of the Capitol insurrection: January 6th, 2023. 

     It's not just his attempted coup that has landed Trump in trouble. The Trump Organization and its CFO, Alan Weisselberg, were indicted in July 2021 for tax fraud related to fringe benefits. Now, New York Attorney General Letitia James has announced that she has credible evidence that both Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump himself were engaged in potential valuation fraud: telling loan companies that their properties are worth millions to get business loans and telling the state government that their properties are uninhabitable hellholes to try to pay as little in taxes as possible. Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. are already facing criminal contempt charges for refusing to show up to a deposition. Eric Trump decided not to break the law and showed up: over the span of a few hours, he allegedly used his fifth amendment right to remain silent over 500 times. This is ironic, considering Donald Trump explained extensively during his 2016 campaign that he considered pleading the fifth something only a guilty person would do. When paired with the Georgia investigation, one thing appears clear: Donald Trump will either face felony charges in 2022 or never.

     There is credible evidence of other attacks on our democracy between 2020 and 2021, and holding people accountable for these actions is my number one priority: a healthy democracy needs to heal, and healing cannot occur before accountability.