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President Joe Biden will defer to his Justice Department on whether former President Donald Trump should be criminally prosecuted over the Jan. 6 sacking of the U.S. Capitol.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that the Biden administration would have “an independent Justice Department” to determine whether to launch a Trump-focused investigation and possibly charge him.
“I am not going to speculate on criminal prosecution from the White House podium,” she told reporters during a briefing.
Asked about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan to establish an independent, 9/11-style commission to investigate the attack, Psaki said it’s “certainly one the president would support” but that it’s ultimately up to Congress, not the White House.
Psaki said it will be “up to the Department of Justice to determine,” adding, “We’re doing something new here, and there’s going to be an independent Justice Department” to “determine what any path forward and any investigation would look like.”
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Trump was acquitted in his second Senate impeachment trial.
The vote was 57 – 43 to convict, not reaching the two-thirds majority that is necessary for conviction.
There were seven Republicans who voted to stab the former president in the back and to remove the former president from a job he no longer has.
However, the biggest turncoat of them all was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
McConnell said he voted to acquit Trump because he did not believe the Senate had the Constitutional authority to convict him.
But, McConnell suggested that Trump could be criminally prosecuted.
“A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name…He was the only one [who could end it.]…The president did not act swiftly, he did not do his job…he watched television happily, happily as the chaos unfolded,” McConnell said.
“They did this because they’d been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth because he was angry he lost an election,” he said. “President Trump is practically and morally responsible.”
“It was obvious that only President Trump could end this … The president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed and order restored,” McConnell said in his takedown of the former president.
“With police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals,” he said.
“Trump is still liable for everything he did while he’s in office. He didn’t get away with anything yet,” he said as he said that the former president could be criminally prosecuted.
Utah GOP Sen. Mitt Romney made history as the first Senator to vote to impeach a president of his own party.
And Sen. Richard Burr, other than McConnell, may have given the strongest anti-Trump statement of anyone on the Republican side.
“The facts are clear,” he said. “ The evidence is compelling that President Trump is guilty of inciting an insurrection against a coequal branch of government and that the charge rises to the level of high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Therefore, I have voted to convict.”