obstruction of an official proceeding charge. that s one of the bread and butter charges of these january 6th cases. and perhaps the most significant. if that s what they charge him with. they re charging the former president with obstructing the congressional vote count that happened on january 6th. that s up to 20 years. that s a very significant charge. this will be brought in d.c. what is different about a d.c. jury pool than a south florida jury pool, and can donald trump argue that this jury pool in d.c. couldn t possibly be fair to him? well, look, this jury pool, you re asking us what s different, it s like what s not different, right. this is a jurisdiction in which more than 90% of voters in the 2020 election voted for joe biden and not donald trump. however, donald trump s complains about the jury pool not being fair to him is disingenuous when he himself is tainting the jury pool on a regular basis through his truth social posts. the things he has had to say about the
case, of course seditious conspiracy is the most serious charge that carries up to 20 years behind bars if convicted. but even if we don t get a conviction or even a verdict, a unanimous verdict on all of these charges, can you remind us what the different charges are that we ll be listening to hear verdicts on? yeah, you know, the obstruction of an official proceeding charge has the same exposure, criminal exposure for a lot of the defendants, and i think that s been generally a lot easier of a charge for jurors to decide. remember, in that first oath keepers trial that we saw back in the fall, it was only, i think, two out of the defendants who were ultimately found guilty of seditious conspiracy. that would be kelly megs and stewart rhodes, so the jury wasn t able to reach a conclusion on that charge of seditious conspiracy. all the defendants were found guilty in some capacity and, you know, a lot of them had
me former deputy airy deputy cistern general. also with us, we ll carry all, rmer acting u.s. solicitor general. what is your sense of the potential importance of criminal referrals that the committee might issue? well, lawrence, you ve been talking about this major announcement from donald trump this morning, and i will just say there s a good chance that after these referrals that we re gonna see a donald trump digital trading card convicting him behind bars, because i do think that s where this referral is going to go. it s going to be, to say that [inaudible] he should be indicted, as a former president united states, but the evidence that the committee has generated paints that picture. liz cheney has already said that she believes that there is enough to have an obstruction of an official proceeding charge. so i think it s absolutely appropriate that if the committee appeals, that there is that evidence and it sure looks like many people do
well, lawrence, you ve been talking about this major announcement from donald trump this morning, and i will just say there s a good chance that after these referrals that we re gonna see a donald trump digital trading card convicting him behind bars, because i do think that s where this referral is going to go. it s going to be, to say that [inaudible] he should be indicted, as a former president united states, but the evidence that the committee has generated paints that picture. liz cheney has already said that she believes that there is enough to have an obstruction of an official proceeding charge. so i think it s absolutely appropriate that if the committee appeals, that there is that evidence and it sure looks like many people do believe that, that they make that referral to the justice department. that will mean that he is prosecuted. just an advisory opinion, basically, from the committee to the department. they re not bound by it.
a panel of three federal appeals court judges started to decide whether that charge should be nulified when it comes to january 6. whether it shouldn t be allowed to use that charge against january 6 defendants. at a lower level at the district court level and the federal court system in d.c., there is one trump appointed judge who has ruled that that felony charge, that obstruction of an official proceeding charge can t be used against january 6 defendants. lots of other judges in that same court said it s fine to use that charge. in fact, have overseen trials in which it has been used and it has been used to secure convictions. but there is this one trump judge who says it shouldn t be used. it was a federal appeals court which heard oral arguments on whether or not that specific felony charge can essentially be