As the Jan. 6 committee continues to roll out an overwhelming case of corrupt conduct by Donald Trump, the calls grow louder for the Department of Justice to bring criminal charges against the former president.
Even if that happens, it would be a fundamental mistake to view the department as the avenging angel that alone can restore accountability and truth to our deeply damaged politics. We are in a critical constitutional moment, and it is society as a whole that has to renounce Trump's lies and the democracy-destroying poison — and actions — that he and other Trumpists will inflict on the 2024 elections and have inflicted on state voting laws in the past year.
From everything we know, and especially from the evidence put on in the two hearings so far, the Justice Department appears to have the goods to indict Trump. As is widely recognized, the pivotal issue for criminal liability is Trump's state of mind: If he knew he lost the election, it would be straightforward to show that several of his post-Election Day schemes were criminal.
