WASHINGTON – United States Attorney-General Merrick Garland said yesterday amid calls by some Democrats for former president Donald Trump to be prosecuted for the Capitol riot that “no person is above the law”.
“This is the most wide-ranging investigation, and the most important investigation, that the Justice Department has ever entered into,” Garland told reporters about the probe into the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress by Trump supporters.
“And we have done so because this effort to upend a legitimate election – transferring power from one administration to another – cuts at the fundamentals of American democracy,” Garland said.
“We have to get this right,” he stressed. “We have to hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election.”
Asked whether that even applies to a former president, Garland said: “No person is above the law in this country. I can’t say it any more clearly than that.
“There is nothing in the principles of prosecution, in any other factors which prevent us from investigating anyone – anyone – who’s criminally responsible for an attempt to undo a democratic election,” he said.
More than 850 people have been arrested in connection with the 2021 attack on Congress, which came after Trump delivered a fiery speech to his supporters near the White House falsely claiming that the election was “stolen”.
Most of them have been charged with seeking to obstruct an official proceeding – the certification by Congress of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
The 76-year-old Trump, who has repeatedly hinted that he may run for the White House again in 2024, was impeached for a historic second time by the House after the Capitol riot – he was charged with inciting an insurrection – but was acquitted by the Senate.
A select House committee conducting an investigation of the Capitol riot is to hold its eighth and final hearing today and plans to provide a detailed examination of Trump’s actions on January 6. – AFP, July 21, 2022
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