Politics

There is a multitude of reasons why President Donald Trump is at the center of heightened controversy following his "Save America" rally that, subsequently, contributed to his supporters storming the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6.

While many legal experts have expressed concern about Trump pardoning himself, one ex-prosecutor has expressed concern about another possibility: how the president could grant pardons to his supporters who are facing criminal charges for their involvement in the U.S. Capitol siege.

On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump called the top elections investigator in Georgia and demanded he "find the fraud" and be a "national hero" — an interaction some legal experts believe opens him up to new charges of obstruction of justice.

"Trump placed the call to the investigations chief for the Georgia secretary of state's office shortly before Christmas — while the individual was leading an inquiry into allegations of ballot fraud in Cobb County, in the suburbs of Atlanta, according to people familiar with the episode," reported Amy Gardner. "The president's attempts to intervene in an ongoing investigation could amount to obstruction of justice or other criminal violations, legal experts said, though they cautioned a case could be difficult to prove."

On CNN Saturday, commentator Brian Stelter broke down the significance of outgoing President Donald Trump losing his signature social media accounts two weeks away from his departure from office.

"Twitter has been under tremendous pressure from its own staff to take this step," said Stelter. "And frankly, it's a lot easier to do it in the final few days of the Trump administration than it would have been to do this a year or two ago. So Twitter is receiving some credit and also a lot of blame for not doing this sooner and blame from Trump supporters who are going to feel even more isolated."

In the aftermath of the siege on the U.S. Capitol, President Donald Trump started having more conversations with his aides and lawyers about the extent of his presidential pardon power. Now, there are questions about whether or not Trump could pardon himself or others in the wake of the latest calls for him to be held accountable for the violence that ensued.

Legal experts and law observers have revealed timing will be an important factor in the outcome, according to Law & Crime. Many have pointed to Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution as they noted that it states: "The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

"We're in! Let's go, keep it moving, baby!" shouted Derrick Evans, a newly elected Republican member of West Virginia's House of Delegates, as he is seen pushing his way through the rotunda at the U.S. Capitol with a throng of violent Trump supporters in a video live-streamed on Facebook.

This article first appeared in Salon.

On Saturday, POLITICO reported that Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), two of the most vocal lawmakers behind the effort to overturn the presidential election, are struggling to fend off the backlash for their actions in light of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead.

"After rioters stormed the Capitol in a bid to halt certification of Joe Biden's election, Hawley and Cruz are facing immediate consequences," reported Marianne Levine, Holly Otterbein, and Burgess Everett. "Hawley's political patron, former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.), turned on him, calling his support the 'biggest mistake I've ever made.' His top donor, David Humphreys, said he should be censured. Hawley's book publisher dropped him, interfering with a key element of many presidential campaigns. Cruz, meanwhile, is facing a redux of the backlash he received for egging on a shutdown in 2013 over a failed effort to defund Obamacare."

There's only 11 days left in the Trump presidency and the walls are rapidly caving in. Following Trump supporters' breach of the U.S. Capitol, nearly a dozen of the president's administration members resigned and now lawmakers are actively drawing up articles of impeachment—again.

To make matters worse, on Friday evening, the disgraced president has been silenced by the world's largest social media platforms. He's lost the presidency, and more importantly, his ability to reach his massive base. Insiders have revealed that President Donald Trump is sequestered inside of the White House, only opting to speak with a select number of people who have typically been supportive of his governing and actions.

On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has caused historically conservative corporations and trade groups to re-examine their financial relationship with President Donald Trump's administration — and with the Republican Party as a whole.

"Following the attack on the Capitol, advisers crucial to the president's economic policies tried to distance themselves from the Trump-induced mayhem," reported Todd C. Frankel, Jeff Stein, Jena McGregor, and Jonathan O'Connell. "Some resigned, such as former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who was serving as envoy to Northern Ireland, explaining to CNBC that, 'we signed up for lower taxes and less regulation.' Companies considered cutting off the money spigot to the politicians seen as fomenting the worst of it. Firms that did business with the Trump family were reexamining the cost of being associated with a historic insurrection."