The congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol last year still hasn’t started overdue public hearings. But it it has now produced an important legal opinion from a federal judge stating that the “illegality” of the course of action President Donald Trump embarked upon after losing the 2020 election “was obvious.”
The opinion does not put Trump or anyone else in immediate legal jeopardy, although it might put pressure on the Department of Justice to look seriously at the possibility of future indictments. But it’s a significant moment nonetheless.
Judge David O. Carter wrote of Trump and John Eastman, a lawyer who had plotted with the former president on how to overturn the election and was now attempting to shield emails from the House Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack:
