President Donald Trump “more likely than not” committed a crime when he tried to obstruct Congress and overturn his election defeat, a US judge has ruled.
On 6 January 2021, a deadly riot broke out in the US Capitol where a joint session of Congress was sitting to ratify the previous November’s election result which had seen Joe Biden elected president.
As part of an investigation into that insurrection, an application had been made for the release of more than 100 emails written to President Trump by one of his then lawyers, John Eastman.
And on Monday, district court judge David Carter ordered those mails be unveiled to the House committee behind the probe, because, he said: “Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress.”
The judge went on to say that President Trump‘s plan to overturn his defeat amounted to a “coup.”
However, Judge Carter has no power to bring criminal charges. That decision would need to be made by US Attorney General Merrick Garland, for violations of federal law.
“Dr Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” Judge Carter wrote.
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“Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower – it was a coup in search of a legal theory.”
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The Democratic-led committee was formed to investigate last year’s Capitol attack by thousands of Trump supporters, which has seen more than 750 of them charged criminally.
Before the mob stormed the building at the end of Washington’s iconic National Mall, Trump gave a fiery speech in which he falsely claimed his election defeat was the result of widespread fraud, an assertion rejected by multiple courts, state election officials and members of his own administration.
