Despite Growing Evidence, a Prosecution of Trump Would Face Challenges

As new questions swirled this previous week about former President Donald J. Trump’s potential felony publicity for in search of to overturn the 2020 election, Mr. Trump issued a rambling 12-page assertion.

It contained his common combine of outlandish claims, hyperbole and outright falsehoods, but in addition one thing that Trump allies and authorized consultants mentioned was notable and completely different: the beginnings of a authorized protection.

On practically each web page, Mr. Trump gave explanations for why he was satisfied that the 2020 election had been stolen from him and why he was properly inside his rights to problem the outcomes by any means accessible.

What occurred on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Trump wrote, stemmed from an effort by Americans “to hold their elected officials accountable for the obvious signs of criminal activity throughout the election.”

His assertion, whereas unfounded, carried a specific significance given the intensifying give attention to whether or not he might face felony expenses. If the Justice Department had been to carry a case in opposition to him, prosecutors would face the problem of displaying that he knew — or ought to have identified — that his place was based mostly on assertions about widespread election fraud that had been false or that his try to dam the congressional certification of the result was unlawful.

As a potential protection, the tactic urged by Mr. Trump’s assertion is way from a assure in opposition to prosecution, and it presents apparent issues of credibility. Mr. Trump has a lengthy historical past of saying no matter fits his functions with out regard for the reality. And some of the actions he took after the 2020 election, like urgent officers in Georgia to flip sufficient votes to swing the result in that state to his column, communicate to a decided effort to carry on to energy quite than to handle some broader perceived vulnerability within the election system.

But his continued stream of falsehoods highlights some of the complexities of pursuing any felony case in opposition to him, regardless of how properly established the important thing info are at this level.

And the assertion additionally mirrored steps Mr. Trump is taking behind the scenes to construct a new authorized group to take care of an array of investigations, together with into his pressure campaign to alter the result of the election in Georgia and his taking classified documents with him when he left workplace.

M. Evan Corcoran, a white-collar protection lawyer and former federal prosecutor introduced on by Mr. Trump, was concerned in drafting the doc, in line with two individuals briefed on the matter. Mr. Corcoran has additionally represented Stephen Okay. Bannon, a Trump ally who has been indicted by the Justice Department for refusing to cooperate with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault.

Mr. Corcoran and a spokesman for Mr. Trump didn’t reply to a request for remark.

The assertion got here throughout a week wherein the House committee’s hearings drove dwelling Mr. Trump’s potential felony and civil authorized publicity by highlighting testimony from aides and advisers documenting what he had been advised, and when, in regards to the validity of his election fraud claims and the legality of his technique for hanging on to energy.

At its third listening to on Thursday, the committee constructed a case that Mr. Trump had plunged forward with a scheme to have Vice President Mike Pence unilaterally overturn the 2020 election regardless that Mr. Trump had been advised it had no authorized foundation.

The Justice Department is investigating a quantity of components of the Capitol riot and the broader effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to maintain the White House regardless of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has given no public indication that the division is constructing a case in opposition to Mr. Trump, who has lengthy contended that the investigations into the Jan. 6 assault are partisan and unfounded and whose facet of the story has not been introduced within the House committee’s hearings.

But the panel’s investigation has already generated proof that might improve the strain on Mr. Garland to maneuver extra aggressively, a course of motion that might carry extraordinary authorized and political implications. After prodding from the Justice Department, the House committee signaled in latest days that it could start sharing some transcripts of its witness interviews with federal prosecutors as early as subsequent month.

In a civil case associated to the committee’s work, a federal choose concluded in March that Mr. Trump and a lawyer who had suggested him, John Eastman, had most likely committed felonies of their effort to overturn the election. “The illegality of the plan was obvious,” Judge David O. Carter of Federal District Court for the Central District of California concluded in that case.

Judge Carter cited two crimes that he mentioned the 2 males had been possible responsible of committing: conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstructing a congressional continuing. Members of the House committee have made comparable strategies, and a few legal professionals have contended that Mr. Trump is also weak to a cost of seditious conspiracy.

But efficiently prosecuting the potential expenses urged by Judge Carter and others might rely upon establishing Mr. Trump’s intent — a problem that his assertion this previous week appeared to handle with the argument that he believed his challenges to the result had been grounded in authentic questions in regards to the conduct of the election.

Daniel L. Zelenko, a white-collar protection lawyer and former federal prosecutor, mentioned that in all of the potential crimes that had been being checked out in reference to Mr. Trump’s conduct, the Justice Department would want to indicate that he had the intent to commit a crime. Mr. Zelenko mentioned that whereas the brand new particulars revealed by the committee would assist prosecutors in proving intent, the federal government nonetheless had a vary of different points to beat in constructing any prosecution.

“The key is having contemporaneous evidence that he was saying that he knew the election was not stolen but tried to stay in power anyway,” mentioned Mr. Zelenko, a co-chair of the white-collar protection apply at Crowell & Moring. “The problem with Trump is that you have to try and get inside his mind, and he has such a history of lying and pushing falsehoods that it makes it difficult to determine what he really believes.”

Aside from the proof the committee has already revealed, the panel has obtained different testimony that undermines Mr. Trump’s declare that he thought he actually gained the election. According to 2 individuals briefed on the matter, Alyssa Farah Griffin, the White House communications director within the days after the election, not too long ago testified to the committee that Mr. Trump mentioned to her in November 2020 phrases alongside the strains of: Can you consider I misplaced to Mr. Biden?

In a tv interview final fall, Ms. Griffin, who didn’t reply to a request for remark, acknowledged one of the complicating components in figuring out what Mr. Trump might have believed. She mentioned Mr. Trump may need modified his thoughts within the aftermath of the election.

“He told me shortly after that he knew he lost, but then, you know, folks got around him,” Ms. Griffin mentioned on CNN, referring to outdoors advisers who pushed false election-fraud claims. “They got information in front of him, and I think his mind genuinely might have been changed about that, and that’s scary, because he did lose, and the facts are out there.”

Samuel W. Buell, a regulation professor at Duke University and former federal prosecutor, mentioned any felony case in opposition to Mr. Trump must begin with establishing that he had been conscious that what he was doing was improper.

“You need to show that he knew what he was doing was wrongful and had no legal basis,” he mentioned. “I’m not saying that he has to think: What I’m doing is a crime. It’s proving: I know I don’t have a legal argument, I know I’ve lost the election, but I’m going ahead with a known-to-be-false claim and a scheme that has no legal basis.”

The House committee’s hearings are usually not a trial. The panel is free to be selective in what testimony it employs to construct a case in opposition to Mr. Trump, and the previous president has no allies on the committee who can query witnesses or present data useful to him.

But the hearings have highlighted a collection of witnesses who mentioned that Mr. Trump had been advised straight and repeatedly forward of Jan. 6 that there was no foundation to his claims that election fraud value him re-election.

And the committee introduced temporary however doubtlessly essential testimony from Mr. Pence’s chief counsel, Greg Jacob. In a deposition, Mr. Jacob advised the panel that Mr. Trump had been advised on Jan. 4, 2021, by Mr. Eastman — who was pushing a plan to have Mr. Pence block or delay certification of the Electoral College depend — that the scheme would violate the Electoral Count Act, the federal regulation governing the method.

In investigations which can be centered nearly solely on bodily motion, like assaults, muggings and murders, prosecutors don’t must give attention to proving intent for the reason that hyperlink between the motion and the hurt is usually clear.

The query of intent, nonetheless, might be muddy when the crime underneath investigation includes an motion wherein the defendant’s state of thoughts might be laborious to determine. The crimes that authorized consultants say Mr. Trump might have dedicated — obstructing Congress, defrauding the American individuals and seditious conspiracy — fall into that bucket.

In these instances, the federal government faces a collection of hurdles it must clear to show intent. The cleanest approach is discovering proof that the defendant knew she or he was doing one thing improper.

In Mr. Trump’s case, legal professionals mentioned, that might take the shape of direct proof that he knew his assertions of widespread election fraud had been baseless or that he knew the technique he was pursuing was unlawful.

If the Justice Department couldn’t set up direct proof of what Mr. Trump knew, prosecutors would want to show to circumstantial proof. To do this, they might sometimes depend on what consultants and other people of authority round him had been telling him about whether or not the election had actually been stolen or what sorts of methods for combating the result could be authorized.

Expert recommendation is usually sufficient to indicate a jury what a defendant knew, legal professionals mentioned. But that could be tougher with Mr. Trump as a result of he has such a lengthy historical past of disregarding consultants and his personal aides, they mentioned.

Given the problem of displaying what Mr. Trump really knew, there may be one different approach prosecutors might present he had a corrupt intent: proving what is usually referred to as “willful blindness.”

Under that precept, the federal government would want to indicate that Mr. Trump believed there was a excessive likelihood that the consultants and his aides had been telling him the reality once they mentioned the election had not been stolen, however that he took deliberate actions to keep away from studying extra about why they believed that.

Mr. Zelenko mentioned he understood why many Americans watching the hearings could be satisfied that constructing a felony case in opposition to the previous president was a sturdy chance. But he cautioned that the usual for utilizing proof in opposition to a defendant is increased in court docket, the place judges nearly all the time insist that prosecutors depend on firsthand testimony, witnesses might be cross-examined and prosecutors must show their arguments past a cheap doubt.