Former United States Attorney Preet Bharara suggested Tuesday that former President Donald Trump could be “in jeopardy” of possible criminal charges even if the Senate acquits him on impeachment.
Discussing the ongoing trial with a panel on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” host Chris Cuomo brought up the potential post-impeachment criminal prosecution of Trump, a point he said he has heard “echoed on the right.”
“‘If you think Trump is responsible, just arrest him and hold him to account now that he’s not president anymore,'” Cuomo said, repeating the argument. “Now it’s not crystal clear that that can happen. We’ve seen only mostly civil litigation involving former presidents for events during their presidency, but do you think that’s a legitimate option here, that if the Senate takes a pass, acquits him, that he could be arrested and prosecuted?”
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“Yeah,” Bharara responded. “Look, on any one of a number of issues, the president is in jeopardy. He’s in jeopardy out of the Manhattan D.A.’s office with [Cyrus] Vance looking at various improprieties related to his taxes and representations he’s made to financial institutions.”
“There are people who are potentially taking a look at the other actions, some of which make up the conduct of the article of impeachment, interfering with the result in the Georgia election,” he continued. “We know that the D.C. attorney general is taking a look at things.”
Bharara contended that while the processes of President Joe Biden’s pick for attorney general, Merrick Garland, aren’t known yet, there are “all manner of things the Justice Department can look at.”
“So he is in a certain amount of jeopardy no matter what,” he continued, adding that currently unknown crimes could also be revealed. “So I think there’s jeopardy based on things we know. I think there’s probably jeopardy on things we don’t yet know.” (RELATED: ‘I Have No Idea What He’s Doing’: Dershowitz Rips Trump Attorney During Defense Opener)
The Senate voted 56-44 on Tuesday to affirm the constitutionality of the impeachment trial, with six Republicans joining every Democratic senator.