Law professor explains Jack Smith's 'surprising' potential charge against Trump

Former President Donald Trump's target letter from special counsel Jack Smith mentioned a number of potential federal offenses under the January 6 criminal investigation he could face, including conspiracy to defraud the United States.

But one potential charge in particular is something few experts saw coming, argued New York University law professor Ryan Goodman on CNN Wednesday — and it actually makes a lot of sense.

"The target letter mentions conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States, deprivation of rights, witness tampering," said anchor Erin Burnett. "Now, it's unclear just because they say three doesn't mean there's only three. You can kind of read the tea leaves on what they're choosing to include those three means. What does it tell you?"

"So, the first and the third are not unexpected," said Goodman. "The first one is conspiracy to defraud. Very likely that includes the scheme with the false slate of electors. It is defrauding the United States and the ability to conduct an election by having these false electors submit their certificates and gumming up the—"

"And we know the special counsel has been looking at this, including the Georgia video," agreed Burnett.

"The witness tampering statute, it's very broad, and it easily includes obstruction of official proceedings, which the DOJ has charged dozens of people for that, for the Capitol riot. But it also could include the pressure on Mike Pence. That would be the obstruction of Congress. That's easily fits," said Goodman. "The middle one is a surprise."

"Deprivation of rights," said Burnett.

"Not many experts were talking about this," said Goodman. "I think I'm one of many legal experts across the country who were scrambling to research this. But it actually looks like a very good fit. When you deprive voters of their ability for votes to be counted fairly, that could fit quite easily with what we know about the facts."

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Ryan Goodman discusses potential Trump deprivation of rights chargewww.youtube.com