The NPR Politics Podcast - Will The Jan. 6 Investigations Have An Impact On The 2024 Race?

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

The Department of Justice's investigation into the events of January 6 has expanded to include testimony from more members of then-President Trump and then-Vice President Pence's inner circles, like former Pence chief of staff Marc Short. But does this investigation have any impact on how Republican voters say they plan to vote in the 2024 presidential primaries?Listen to our special report on the January 6th attacks.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, justice correspondent Ryan Lucas, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Akshara, Stithi, and Yuthi from Washington Dulles Airport. We are cousins and about to board our 15-hour long flight to visit our grandparents in India after three long years. And getting all the COVID shots. This podcast was recorded at 1.42 p.m. on Thursday, July 28th. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. We will be in India by then playing with our grandparents, eating mangoes, or visiting the Golconda Fort.

Okay, here's the show. Oh, that is awesome. That's wonderful. Cool trip. My youngest one is getting his second shot today, and then we are going on a plane, on a very long flight on vacation. Hopefully not for 15 hours. No, only eight. Definitely get all the shots. Get all the

shots. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. The January 6th committee wrapped up its summer hearings last week. And if you want a recap of those, go listen to this totally awesome, if I may say so myself, special edition of this podcast that we did last week. It is in your feed and highly recommend, but I am biased. But with those hearings ending for now, the question becomes what happens next? In particular, what happens next for the former President Donald Trump and his associates, if anything? And we're starting to get some ideas. The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the Department of Justice

is now asking witnesses directly about the role then President Trump played in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. And it's important to note that that report and others on their own do not indicate that the Justice Department is investigating Trump himself. But Ryan, what do you take from these developments? This is a good reminder that the Justice Department very often likes to work quietly, not in public and without people knowing exactly what it is they're doing. But remember, they've arrested more than 850 people in connection with the storming of the Capitol. We know that they have been investigating this fake electors scheme, which is people close to Trump, including Rudy Giuliani, were pushing

Republican officials in certain states, including Arizona and Georgia, to put forward an alternate slate of electors, even though Biden had won those states. This is a scheme that was taking place through December and early January. This is something that we've known for months the Justice Department has been investigating. We know that the Justice Department is looking at former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark in efforts to kind of replace the leadership of the Justice Department with Jeffrey Clark, someone who was, shall we say, more sympathetic to efforts to try to use the power of the Justice Department to help Trump overturn the election. What we've seen now is reporting indicating that the most senior

officials that we've seen so far, former chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence. And you confirmed that Mark Short did testify before the... I should actually say his name probably, Mark Short did testify before the grand jury. And the Post is reporting that there were very specific questions to people who have testified before the grand jury about what exactly Trump was saying in certain of these meetings. As you said at the top, very important to remember, this does not indicate that Trump is a target of the investigation at this point. He's certainly from former prosecutors that I've spoken with a subject, somebody who's of interest. They would like to understand what role he would play in all of this.

But this does not indicate that he himself is a target of the Justice Department's investigation and that they believe at this point in time that he's committed a crime. Can I ask you like an even way more basic question, which is just what does it mean that these people are testifying before a grand jury? Is a grand jury how the Justice Department builds a case? What does this process indicate? It indicates, well, one, that there's a federal investigation ongoing, that they are investigating what that would allow them to best understand what happened, who said what, to see whether there is enough evidence to bring a case to court against certain individuals. Who those individuals are, that we're going it stands to reason, Ryan, that if the Department of Justice is looking into the fake elector scheme that was perpetuated by members of the then president's inner circle, that they'd want to also understand what Giuliani's saying. If Trump's in the meeting, they're going to want to understand what Trump is saying. This is part of prosecutors getting their arms around what happened and what people said and coming to the best understanding so that they can take that evidence, marshal it, and see if there's a case to

be brought, if there's a potential criminal conspiracy. Yeah, that's what I was wondering, is what is the crime? I mean, obviously, they were trying to come up with some way to prevent the election result from being the election result. They were trying to come up with some way of putting in different electors that would make Donald Trump president. But what's the case law on that? I mean, nobody's ever tried this before. Like, what specifically is the legal violation or the law that's violated? This idea that people in these meetings could have been central in a potential criminal conspiracy. The conspiracy could have been to obstruct an official proceeding. That would be the certification of the electoral college count to defraud the United States through the fake elector scheme. Potentially seditious conspiracy. We've seen seditious conspiracy charges brought against members of two extremist groups who were at the Capitol on January 6th. But we know from testimony before the January 6th committee that Trump was aware that people had weapons in the crowd. There's a question of whether there would

be enough evidence to potentially look at a seditious conspiracy charge. This is all hypothetical. We don't know what the Justice Department knows at this time, but this is something that people who have experience building cases say are possible things that the Justice Department could be considering or looking at. And the question I have in looking at, you know, all of these hearings is that we didn't get a whole lot of firsthand conversations between Trump and other people. And the people that the Justice Department have brought in are a lot of people who were high up in his cabinet as cabinet secretaries, people who would potentially have had firsthand conversations and firsthand knowledge of what the president was saying behind the scenes at the time. So I'm curious to see if anything they get from that, what does come out of that?

One thing that I also want to bring up that was in some of the reporting from this past week is what the Washington Post said about Mark Meadows' phone records. They said that the Justice Department obtained Mark Meadows' phone records in April of this year. Mark Meadows was the chief of staff the time all of this was happeningth committee's investigation. But also, Meadows is a central figure in all of this. As you said, he was the chief of staff. He's somebody who would have been in all sorts of conversations, all sorts of communications. We heard that in testimony from the January 6th committee. So he really is a central figure here. And the fact that the Justice Department has his phone records. Now, we don't know whether it's content or whether it's just who he was calling and who was calling him. But either way, that is a significant piece of information here

that people need to bear in mind as this investigation goes forward. Because he would have been in touch with people on the Hill. He would have been in touch with outside activists. He would have been at a central place connecting with the campaign. And there's been testimony that he was told to call Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. You know, there's all this, these various aspects of Mark Meadows and his role as chief of staff that really give him knowledge of a whole host of things that would be of interest to investigators. All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, former President Trump returns to Washington, D.C., just as all this news breaks. And we're back.

And, Domenico, this is where we get to the politics side of this. You and I were both watching the speech that former President Donald part of his second term and may still if he runs and wins, as he's teasing this potential run, saying they have to straighten out the country after building this really dark picture of the country with needles strewn throughout the streets and crime happening everywhere. He said about opponents of his, they want to damage me so I cannot go back to work for you. I don't think that's going to happen. That sounds to me like he obviously heavily indicating he wants to run, but also having in the back of his mind what's happening with the January 6th committee. Yeah, what's happening with the committee and in all likelihood also the DOJ investigation. I'm wondering what you are seeing or hearing from Republicans about how these investigations might influence the way they vote or plan to vote in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries. I realize it's early, but, you know, with Trump teasing that he might run, it does seem like things are a little bit frozen.

Well, and Trump himself has said that the biggest decision he has to make – he said he's already made the decision. He hasn't said which way, but he said that his biggest decision is to announce it before or after the midterms. So we're all sort of waiting to see what he's going to do. Of course, he's been saying that for about a year. So we're not 100% sure if that's a head fake or not. But when you look at survey data and polling when it comes to Republicans, there hasn't been a ton of movement on whether they blame Trump or not. But you have seen some marginal movement that's been significant. For example, a CNN poll, 55% said that they don't want Trump to be the nominee. That's up from 49%.

In February, Reuters, Ipsos had a poll that showed that a third of Republicans think Trump should not run again. That's up from a quarter from a month and a half before that, which was before the hearings, right? So between then and now, what we've seen is that power is really influenced by distance from power. And the heart in this case does not necessarily grow fonder, especially because of the pressure the January 6th committee is putting on Trump's image. Now, look, we shouldn't overstate any of this. Trump is still the big fish in the Republican pond. Yeah. And, you know, I was talking to Sarah Longwell, who is a Republican political consultant. She did not support Trump in 2020, but she has been doing these focus groups with Trump

voters in recent months. And she said that since the January 6th committee hearings got going in earnest, when she asks people in these focus groups, do you want Trump to run again? You know, people used to excitedly say, yes, we want Trump to run again. And now she's seeing a lot more ambivalence. Trump relitigating the 2020 election on January 6th. I'm not sure that's the right strategy. I mean, one of the things I hear in focus groups all the time from Republican voters is how much they want to move on from the January 6th conversation. So, Ryan, this may be jumping way into the realm of hypothesis here, but is there a difference between Donald Trump, regular citizen, former guy, and Donald Trump, active

candidate, political candidate pursuing the nomination? Well, look, traditionally, the guidance within the Justice Department is not to take any sort of prosecutorial action that could affect the outcome of an election. Elections are sacrosanct, and we need to protect them, and you don't want to have the Justice Department putting its hand on the scales one way or the other. But Merrick Garland has said repeatedly that the Justice Department is going to held everyone and anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6th or attempts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power. And he was actually asked directly about this in an interview this past week with Lester Holt of NBC News. We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6th for any attempt

to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another accountable. And so look, Garland is a former circuit court judge. He's very buttoned down. He's very meticulous. But from listening to him over the past couple of years, this is him saying, if we develop the evidence, we're going to do what needs to be done. All right. Well, that is a wrap for today. We will be back tomorrow. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Ryan Lucas. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.