Unprecedented: All three branches of government have converged on Donald Trump

It has taken nearly an entire Congress – 18 months, to be exact – but today the Jan. 6 Committee completed its investigation of the events surrounding the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election of 2020.  It was a historic day in many ways, but none more so than the fact that the committee’s referral to the Department of Justice of four significant criminal charges against the former president marks the first time in our nation’s history that all three branches of the United States Government have essentially concluded that a former president is a criminal.

The Department of Justice convened a grand jury in Washington D.C. shortly after the assault on the Capitol to begin hearing evidence against those arrested for their roles in the assault.  Hundreds of arrests have been made and dozens of trials or guilty pleas have been entered against those involved in the attack.  By early summer of this year, the grand jury expanded its focus to include the former president as a target, as well as hearing evidence given by his close associates such as the White House counsel and deputy counsel and numerous top aides to Trump. 

The grand jury has subpoenaed and taken testimony from officials of the governments of the seven battleground states Trump lost in 2020 who were involved in Trump’s attempts to submit slates of fake electors to the Congress in advance of its certification of electoral ballots on Jan. 6, 2020.  The grand jury has taken testimony from people Trump called on the phone trying to get them to overthrow the elections in several states, including Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Georgia.

In May of this year, a second grand jury was empaneled to investigate Trump’s mishandling of classified and non-classified national security documents he took from the White House and stored in non-secure facilities in Palm Beach at his resort/hotel/residence, Mar a Lago.  In August, the FBI conducted a search of Mar a Lago and seized thousands of documents Trump held there, including more than 100 folders of highly classified national security documents.  This investigation is continuing.