Former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D) said Tuesday during ABC’s coverage of the January 6 House Select Committee hearing that although it was politically devastating to Donald Trump, it also showed a Trump indictment would be “very tough” to get legally.
Anchor David Muir said, “What did you make of what you heard today?”
Heitkamp said, “I think it’s devastating to the former president. And these events, we’re covering them a lot like a trial, but they really are a political event. I think the president, the former president, sees his popularity waning, and it’s no small amount of publicity that he’s getting here in terms of his unwillingness to see a rational argument when it’s presented to them. So I think that’s politically, and that’s the way I look at these hearings. I think this has been devastating to the former president. Whether it’s going to have an effect on the midterms, I think, remaining to be seen. But as people still stand fast with the former president, I think that there’s going to be a need, eventually, for the party and for people like Kevin McCarthy to start distancing themselves. These are devastating revelations about the president’s behavior. I think Liz Cheney tried to get at that point that this is not someone who was duped. This is somebody who was leading the charge for an insurrection.”
She added, “It’s going to be up to the Justice Department. I agree with Dan. I think everything as a former prosecutor myself, everything that I’ve heard, I think it would be a very tough indictment to get, but I also think it would be tough, I think it would be very, very difficult, knowing what we know right now to see an indictment of this president.”
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