'Hurry up': Donald Trump's biographer urges January 6th panel to refer him for criminal prosecution

'Hurry up': Donald Trump's biographer urges January 6th panel to refer him for criminal prosecution
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According to Bloomberg editor and Donald Trump biographer Tim O'Brien, a bombshell revelation earlier this week from the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot looks to be intended to get the attention of Merrick Garland.

As O'Brien notes, the 58-page brief released on Wednesday contains a passage that explicitly states, "Evidence and information available to the Committee establishes a good-faith belief that Mr. Trump and others may have engaged in criminal and/or fraudulent acts.”

Added to that O'Brien wrote, "The committee also says there’s ample proof that Team Trump engineered a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Many advisers, including former Attorney General William Barr, told Trump that no electoral fraud occurred, but he plowed ahead."

According to the columnist the timing of the release of the document, at a time when the committee is planning to hold public hearings, is both a hint to the Department of Justice and an expression of frustration with the slow pace of investigations in Garland's DOJ.

As the columnist explains, the committee is "on the clock" with the possibility that Republicans will take over the House in the midterms and shut their investigation down.

Reporting that the committee tweeted, "The facts we’ve gathered strongly suggest that Dr. Eastman’s emails may show that he helped Donald Trump advance a corrupt scheme to obstruct the counting of electoral college ballots and a conspiracy to impede the transfer of power,” O'Brien claimed their intent was to give Garland a nudge.

"Thus far the committee has been purposeful, disciplined and unemotional. And it knew the media would find that sentence on page 39 and alert the public to the committee’s belief that Trump may have committed crimes," the columnist suggested before concluding, "The committee also knew that Garland would be paying attention to its court filing. Its message to him: Hurry up."

You can read his whole column here -- subscription required.

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