11/9/2022 0 Comments 77 days to subvert the election![]() It is useful to think of them as the legal prong and the discretionary prong. Those principles are intended “to promote the reasoned exercise of prosecutorial authority and contribute to the fair, evenhanded administration of the federal criminal laws.” The Principles include a two-part directive when considering charges, one based on the sufficiency of the evidence and the other based on the interests of justice. The Department of Justice follows its internal Principles of Federal Prosecution. This report focuses solely on potential violations of federal law. Publicly available information also indicates potential violations of state law. Depending on the facts that emerge, other statutes may also have been violated, such as the federal voter fraud statute and seditious conspiracy. Looking solely at this aspect of the strategy, at least two federal criminal statutes may have been violated in this episode alone: conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding. This effort may have been only one of many schemes within a larger strategy to overturn the election. While facts are still being uncovered, public reporting and some of the evidence obtained by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol show a relentless campaign to coerce Pence into helping Trump retain the presidency. Under the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act, the vice president, as president of the Senate, is responsible for opening the certificates and counting the votes on the sixth day of January following a presidential election. Public reporting, including governmental documents, indicate that following the 2020 election, President Donald Trump exerted pressure on Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certificates of electors from certain states won by Joe Biden and declare Trump the winner. Report on the Investigation into the 2020 Presidential Election: Pressuring Vice President Mike Pence ![]() ![]() ![]() Prosecution memos generally do so explicitly. The Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election prepared by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, for example, was a kind of prosecution memo, though it refrained from reaching a conclusion as to whether a crime was committed and charges should be filed. Prosecution memos enable supervisors and others in the chain of command to review the evidence, anticipate defenses, and assess the strengths and weaknesses of a criminal prosecution. Prosecution memos are prepared by attorneys in criminal cases at the Department of Justice to summarize the evidence and their legal theories for prosecution. The following memorandum is a model “prosecution memo” analyzing potential charges against former President Donald Trump for his efforts to pressure Mike Pence to abuse his authority as vice president in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Jan. ![]()
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