When the U.S. House select committee assigned to investigate the riot/insurrection of 1/6 gets near the end of its mission, it likely will face a key decision: Does it refer criminal charges against the former president of the United States to the Department of Justice?

Then we will have another key decision — perhaps — from DOJ: Will it indict the former POTUS on criminal charges related to whatever he did to incite the insurrection?

Let’s be clear-headed about something that Attorney General Merrick Garland has said about what might lie ahead. He said he would “follow the law wherever it leads.” Garland said he would not be pushed toward any action or away from it on the basis of politics. I take him at his word. He served on the federal bench before getting the call to lead the Justice Department and by all accounts he did his job interpreting the Constitution with distinction, fairness and with integrity. Thus, I have no reason to believe he wouldn’t make any DOJ-related decisions using the same benchmarks that guided his decisions as a judge.

Garland does not strike me as a man who shies away from making history. He surely would do so if a federal grand jury under his watch were to indict a former president of the U.S.A. on criminal charges. It was President Nixon who once suggested that presidents were “above the law,” that whatever decision they made while serving as president were “legal” only because it was the president who was making them.

Garland has let it be known clearly and with ambiguity that no one — not even a president — is above the law.

The timing of all this remains anyone’s guess. Donald Trump is trying to run out the clock. He seeks to delay it all until after the midterm election. If Republicans, as expected, take control of Congress, then succeed in delaying any action further, then they will have given life to two dubious assertions.

One is that Richard Nixon’s misguided declaration of presidential power is correct, and that Donald Trump will be able to slip away — once again — from those who are demanding he be held accountable for the insurrection that sought to derail our cherished democracy.

If the U.S. Justice Department is going to indict Donald Trump, my fervent hope is that it acts with immediate dispatch.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com