Will a political prosecution of former former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) be successful? "No dice," says one former prosecutor who warns that the threat still shouldn't be ignored.
Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig swiftly poured cold water on House Republicans’ claims that former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) broke the law for her work on the Jan. 6 committee – and suggested that a recently released GOP report “crosses the line.”
Now, another former federal prosecutor, MSNBC's Joyce Vance, is sounding the alarm about the report.
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"This is how revenge prosecutions start. A Trump-led Justice Department investigates following a referral from the subcommittee. That sounds normal enough and can be presented to the Trump supporters and even non-lawyers in the general public as though it is," the analyst wrote. "But it isn’t. It’s not even close to normal."
Vance goes on to suggest that Cheney "has speech and debate clause immunity for all of this work."
"What she is accused of doing clearly and literally falls within the well-understood contours of that doctrine," the expert said.
"In other words, there can’t be a successful prosecution. Just as Trump argued with presidential immunity, conduct involving his official acts could not form the basis for a prosecution," Vance added. "The only difference is that the Constitution sets forth speech and debate immunity for Senators and Representatives, while Trump’s special privilege was crafted for him by the Supreme Court."
Vance goes on to call the criminal referral "unusual," and "the kind of thing DOJ typically passes on."
"Prosecutors can only indict a case if they believe they can obtain an conviction and sustain it on appeal and where it’s barred by immunity from the outset, no dice. But this referral from the House comes in the context of Trump’s call for revenge prosecutions, which means we don’t have to think very hard to understand what’s going on. House Republicans have bent the knee, and hard," she wrote. "This is not normal and it must not be ignored."