Brookings Governance Studies – Trump on Trial – A Guide to the January 6 Hearings and the Question of Criminality [104 pages] By Norman Eisen, Donald Ayer, Joshua Perry, Noah Bookbinder, and E. Danya Perr: “…The report goes beyond prior analyses to provide the first in-depth treatment of the voluminous publicly available facts and the relevant law, including possible defenses. The report reviews the evidence as to whether Trump as a matter of law conspired with his outside counsel John Eastman, administration lawyer Jeffrey Clark, and  others to defraud the United States in violation of 18U.S.C.§ 371, by scheming to block the electoral count on January 6, 2021 and to subvert the Department of Justice’s election enforcement work. We similarly review the evidence as to whether Trump and Eastman violated 18 U.S.C. §1512(c) with their scheme to obstruct the congressional count.While this report is primarily focused on federal offenses, we also note evidence potentially probative of state criminal violations. Fulton County, Georgia is one jurisdiction currently investigating such evidence, and we briefly address the factual and legal analysis attendant to that investigation, which is also the subject of a separate report by some of the authors here. Our review of well-established law and public record evidence as it exists today leads us to believe that there is substantial evidence of all the essential elements of those federal and state offenses and suggests there is a substantial basis for prosecutors to go forward. This assessment of the currently available evidence does not of course amount to a final determination that Trump or others should ultimately be charged and prosecuted, or that there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt under the standards applied by prosecutors and courts…”