The second televised public hearing of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack begins at 10:30 AM ET Monday and two former federal prosecutors have weighed in to discuss what they think is important.
Barb McQuade, the well-known MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst who served as a U.S. Attorney from 2010 to 2017 is a University of Michigan law professor.
“In today’s hearing, I will be listening for evidence of [Donald] Trump’s knowledge that he lost the election, an essential element for potential fraud crimes relating to his efforts to challenge the outcome,” McQuade says on Twitter.
She points to this from The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell:
McQuade, who among other high-profile cases secured the conviction of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for public corruption, makes her case for what the Dept. of Justice needs to do after the “J6C,” January 6 Committee’s hearing:
“While it’s important for J6C to tell the whole story, a criminal case could be as simple as this: Trump knew he lost the election and pressured Pence to steal it for him. That’s conspiracy to defraud US, 18 USC 371, and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, 18 USC 1512.”
Daniel Goldman is a former Asst. U.S. Attorney at the Southern District of New York and was the lead counsel for the House’s impeachment of Donald Trump. He comes at the issue from a different angle.
He says Trump “did not and does not reasonably believe the there was election fraud,” which could put. a hole in McQuade’s case, if not for his next sentence: “Under the doctrine of conscious avoidance, he cannot put his head in the sand to avoid reality.”
Meanwhile, the House Select Committee is facing another hurdle: former Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, who was to be a star witness at Monday morning’s televised hearing, has canceled, reportedly due to a “family emergency.”