Lawyers Say Trump's Conduct Calls For Federal Probe

As alarming testimony and facts have continued to emerge about former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the election that he lost, a lively debate has unfolded. Experts are battling over whether and how the former president can and should be held to account.

Photo Insert: Then President Donald Trump during a meeting at the Oval Office

“We believe that the full scope of Trump's conduct must be investigated by federal authorities, for the same reasons and in the same way they usually investigate credible evidence of major wrongdoing. But we recognize that much is not yet known, and that charging decisions are premature. Attorney General Merrick Garland's lifetime of dedication to the even-handed, apolitical administration of justice, combined with his performance of the job to date, make clear that he is well suited to oversee the process and make the ultimate decisions,” Donald Ayer and Norman Eisen stressed in an opinion piece for CNN.

Ayer was a US attorney during the Reagan administration while Eisen was a special counsel to the impeachment panel and served as an ambassador to the Czech Republic.

On one side of the debate, legal scholars and former prosecutors have called for a federal criminal investigation on the grounds that it is essential to defend the integrity of our system of government. They point in part to evidence from eyewitnesses and documents alike that Trump repeatedly tried to overturn the election based on outright lies.

We take exception to those who say there is "little reason" to open an investigation. Trump's statements like "I just want to find 11,780 votes" (made to the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger) and "just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me" (made to Trump's own acting attorney general) suggest Trump knew that he had lost and was openly procuring fraud.

There was no reasonable basis for him or anyone to genuinely believe he had won. Any notion that Trump was articulating an honest but misguided belief is belied by his long record of lies. And claims that the criminal statutes for election fraud and related offenses don't fit here are wrong.

The Justice Department regularly prosecutes public officials for asking election officials to do things like "adding ballots to increase the vote totals for certain candidates," which is what Trump allegedly sought.

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