Could people be indicted for election fraud before January 6? Theoretically, yes. However, election fraud is a federal felony and thus, pursuant to the Fifth Amendment, requires indictment by a grand jury.
There's a saying in law that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich, if that's what the prosecutor wants. There's some truth to that, federal grand juries indict, literally, 98-99% of the time. Indictments are based on probable cause and do not require defense counsel to present for the grand jury inquiry, however the indictment later reviewable in what we call a Gerstein hearing.
Given Powell's past legal arguments in court, I would suspect that the indictment being tossed for lack of probable cause is not out of the realm of possibility. Of course, in this scenario she would (presumably) be using DOJ lawyers, who can actually make good legal arguments. Regardless, given the intense political backdrop to all of this and prior failures in court, I think any indictment for election fraud by Powell would be heavily suspect in a post-indictment Gerstein hearing.
Could people be indicted for election fraud before January 6? Theoretically, yes. However, election fraud is a federal felony and thus, pursuant to the Fifth Amendment, requires indictment by a grand jury.
There's a saying in law that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich, if that's what the prosecutor wants. There's some truth to that, federal grand juries indict, literally, 98-99% of the time. Indictments are based on probable cause and do not require defense counsel to present for the grand jury inquiry, however the indictment later reviewable in what we call a Gerstein hearing.
Given Powell's past legal arguments in court, I would suspect that the indictment being tossed for lack of probable cause is not out of the realm of possibility. Of course, in this scenario she would (presumably) be using DOJ lawyers, who can actually make good legal arguments. Regardless, given the intense political backdrop to all of this and prior failures in court, I think any indictment for election fraud by Powell would be heavily suspect in a post-indictment Gerstein hearing.