Former White House counsel to Richard Nixon John Dean said Tuesday on CNN’s “The Lead” that former President Donald Trump will be facing criminal charges over his actions leading up to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
Referring to former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove and Capitol protester Stephen Ayres, Dean said, “I thought they were powerful witnesses because they were speaking from the heart. This is what they felt. This is how they had performed. They know they had made a mistake. They’ve rethought their position now, and they realize the power of this man. They were really classic authoritarian followers.”
He continued, “It was very planned. We don’t know for how long it was planned. We do know that they knew they were running out of options, so they needed alternatives. This was obviously not, but they made it look very spontaneous, the way they pulled it off, and they pulled that off successfully. As somebody said earlier, Trump really knows how to push the button of his base. He can really make them respond on command, and this was evidence of it.”
Dean added, “I think a criminal case is going to come out of it. And I don’t see how the line prosecutors at the Department of Justice can’t take a lot of this evidence and use it. A lot of these people who are involved in this are going to be in front of a grand jury if they’re not already. And Trump is in trouble. Trump is in trouble.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN