Former attorney to Donald Trump’s White House Ty Cobb says that Congress has already been handed the evidence they need to disqualify the twice-impeached former president from ever running for any office again.
Appearing on CNN Tuesday, Cobb noted that testimonies presented during the Jan. 6 hearings – which painted a picture of Trump sitting in the White House watching TV while insurrectionists were storming the Capitol – combined with him tweeting that former vice president Mike Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what was necessary” after refusing to overturn the 2020 election results create a pretty clear path to criminal charges.
“The Pence tweet, coupled with the three hours of inaction, in my view, easily fits into the definition of giving aid and comfort to the insurrectionists, and that is the standard under Article 3 of the 14th Amendment, which Congress has at its disposal,” Cobb explained. “I don’t for the life of me understand why instead of telling the Justice Department what to do, that they aren’t acting on that alone, because if they have a sense of the Congress, the penalty of finding Trump guilty of giving aid and comfort to an insurrection is disqualification from office forever.”
It is, of course, expected that Trump intends to run again in the 2024 presidential race and that it’s only a question of whether he’ll formally announce his campaign before or after November’s midterms. Congress moving forward with Cobb’s proposal would all but put a halt to those efforts.
“I think Congress has the lane here,” Cobb said.
Elsewhere in the segment, the Trump White House’s former defense attorney noted that the existing evidence makes it exceptionally difficult for the former president to claim he didn’t see what was going on for what it was. Trump’s citing of “willful blindness” just doesn’t add up, considering he had briefings on the rally prior to Jan. 6, the election results had already been challenged and determined – he must have known “they were acting on a frivolous legal theory,” Cobb said.
“There’s considerable evidence out there that his own legal advisors, including [John] Eastman on Jan. 4, acknowledged that, you know, they were acting on a frivolous legal theory,” he said. “I think that’s very damaging to somebody who wants to argue willful blindness.”
No matter the continued content of the Jan. 6 investigations, however, Cobb noted that Trump is going to continue to act the way he always has and use the attention as an opportunity to promote his self-serving messaging.
“While Trump may argue that defense, I think he’s more likely to use the trial in an effort to deal with his themes that he’s all-powerful, he got cheated [and] he’s the only one standing up for the country,” Cobb said.
