In her Tuesday column, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin cited a federal judge who has already made a case for holding former President Donald Trump accountable.
According to the Washington Post column, U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ruled last week that it's illegal to interrupt the counting of electoral votes, even if it was not "specifically contemplated." Meaning, it doesn't matter whether it was premeditated or not. Leading a crowd to the U.S. Capitol to interrupt an election's counting, she ruled, is illegal.
“There is a presiding officer, a process by which objections can be heard, debated, and ruled upon, and a decision — the certification of the results — that must be reached before the session can be adjourned," wrote Judge Friedrich. Indeed, the certificates of electoral results are akin to records or documents that are produced during judicial proceedings, and any objections to these certificates can be analogized to evidentiary objections.”
The judge went on to say that the Jan. 6 attackers not only acted "corruptly," but those who planned the attack to stop the counting fits the bill for the accused.
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"In this sense, the plain meaning of 'corruptly' encompasses both corrupt (improper) means and corrupt (morally debased) purposes," the decision also said … "The Court agrees that § 1512(c)’s proscription of knowing conduct undertaken with the specific intent to obstruct, impede, or influence the proceeding provides a clear standard to which the defendant can conform his behavior."
Rubin then cited former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, who has been making a similar argument, citing those laws for months.
"Judge Friedrich’s decision means the prosecutors don’t have to show someone intended violence for it to be a crime," he told Rubin. "So long as the intent was to influence and disrupt the congressional function of counting the votes, that is sufficient — so long as it was done ‘corruptly.'"
He also explained that Judge Friedrich referenced a previous ruling by the conservative Judge Laurence Silberman, who ruled that the "corruptly" piece of the law meant "doing something by unlawful means."
It only adds to the other problems that Trump faces, like election fraud in Georgia and financial issues in New York.
"Too many people have let themselves be sidetracked into looking for a connection between Trump and the violence of Jan. 6. But that evidence is unnecessary because the crime here is the end result — the intended disruption of the House electoral vote-counting. And from every document, news report or tell-all book we have seen, that is precisely what Trump tried to do. Simply because he told the world about his corrupt intent does not make it any less illegal," Rubin closed.
Read the full column at the Washington Post.
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