Jan. 6 Committee 'moving closer' to proving Trump led a seditious conspiracy: legal expert

MSNBC's Chuck Rosenberg believes the House Select Committee has come close to proving former President Donald Trump led a seditious conspiracy.

The "Morning Joe" legal analyst explained that Thursday's public hearing showed compelling evidence that the former president and his legal advisers, including attorney John Eastman, attempted to obstruct the congressional certification of President Joe Biden's election win, and that they were aware the scheme was unlawful.

"I think they're getting closer all the time, right?" said Rosenberg, a former federal prosecutor and senior FBI official. "The more you talk to people who are around the former president, like Eastman, the more you know about what the president intended. You don't know it perfectly, right? Let's take Eastman as an example. This man gave horrible legal advice, [but] being a bad lawyer is not a crime. I mean, thank goodness for that, right? I'm grateful for that every day."

"But being an unprincipled or unscrupulous lawyer gets you much closer to a crime," he added. "Eastman knew, and we learned this yesterday, that his theory that Pence could reject electors was unfounded. He said he'd lose 9-0 in the Supreme Court. He said that this recourse was not available to Al Gore as vice president in 2000, and he said it wouldn't be available to Kamala Harris in 2024. He also said he knew his theory violated the Electoral Count Act of 1887, yet he urged this on the president of the United States."

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The Select Committee also showed evidence that others told the former president that Eastman's scheme was unfounded, illegal and improper, but Trump continued to press forward with a plan to pressure vice president Mike Pence to overturn his election loss in several key states.

"You're getting closer and closer to what the president knew and, therefore, what he intended," Rosenberg said. "Whether or not there is a criminal referral at the end of the day, I think you're beginning to see a very compelling case that the president of the United States, with others, conspired to obstruct Congress, to thwart the count of electoral votes, to interfere in this work."

"If you can tie them to the use of force, to a seditious conspiracy," he added.

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