Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday morning, former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance told host Ali Velshi that Donald Trump pushing the Department of Justice to intervene in the 2020 presidential election is grounds for an investigation on multiple criminal charges.
The report of Trump pressuring DOJ officials to intervene on his behalf grew more serious this week after it was revealed that a division head had written a draft letter to Georgia authorities at Trump’s urging.
As CNN reported, “…the letter was circulated by Jeffrey Clark, a top department official who was working with the then-President to get the department more directly involved in the Trump election reversal crusade. Clark was acting attorney general of the civil division at the time.”
As Vance noted, the letter is the smoking gun that should lead to multiple criminal investigations of Trump for election interference attempts if they have not already started.
The former federal prosecutor also explained that emerging revelations like the DOJ letter are one of the reasons why criminal investigations seem to go on forever.
“So this is why, you know, folks are so often dismayed by the fact that prosecutions take a long time to get — to come together,” Vance explained to host Velshi.
“Indictments can be delayed for what seems to the public like an unconscionable amount of time [but] the reality is from inside the game,” she continued. “If you’re a prosecutor, an investigator, these facts come to light slowly. and often you can miss the worst conduct if you’re too eager to jump too soon. We’re seeing that happen in real-time now and the argument that we make is that the DOJ needs to be, if it is not already, seriously investigating a number of crimes that range from a conspiracy to defraud the government, to obstruction of official proceedings, to sedition and incitement of insurrection charges, but also voter fraud claims based on this effort by Trump and his allies try to have states tabulate false votes — and even a criminal Hatch provision.”
“That’s not to say that all of these charges should be indicted but the DOJ must not move past the effort to fully investigate these items in a criminal sense, even while Congress continues to keep the momentum up with the January 6th commission,” she elaborated. “Facts can be elusive things and people involved in criminal activity want to keep them from coming to light, so it can be a frustrating process but, frankly, I think we’re now at the point where truth can come to light and the former president no longer has the power of the pardon and accouterments of the power of the presidency.”
Watch below: