NBC Reports ‘Belief’ Trump ‘Could Be Indicted’ Over Jan. 6 Fuels 2024 Republican Insiders: ‘The Fear Factor is Gone’

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Cracks are forming in the wall of fear among 2024 Republican insiders, and according to NBC News, the belief that ex-President Donald Trump “could be indicted” over the Jan. 6 attack is one reason.

The notion that Trump would soon be cooling his heels in a jail cell was once the province of Resistance Twitter fantasy and punditry wishful thinking, but the latest round of the January 6 committee’s hearings began to elevate that chatter from its very start.

Then came the bombshell testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, the former top aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who dropped damaging revelation after damaging revelation at Tuesday’s surprise hearing of the January 6 committee.

And the most colorful of these — the wild fracas in a presidential SUV during which Trump cursed his Secret Service team out and even physically attacked Robert Engel, the head of his detail — at one point grabbing the wheel — when he was informed they would not take him to the Capitol — has lingered in the news cycle thanks to attempts to discredit her that appear to be failing rather badly.

Hutchinson’s testimony has intensified the indictment talk to a fever pitch, and reportedly even has Trump worried.

And according to reporting by NBC News’ Marc Caputo, the prospect of a criminal case is real enough to fuel 2024 Republican consultants and other insiders to action when the once might have been reticent:

Jan. 6 is only one factor in the jockeying to take on the undisputed leader of the GOP, sources say. There’s also the ambition of politicians that’s typical for any end-of-midterm election cycle; a hope Trump won’t run again; a belief by some that he could be indicted as a result of Jan. 6 or his efforts to overturn the election results in Georgia; a sense Trump isn’t so supreme after Republican voters rejected his high-profile endorsed candidates in Georgia and other primary races; and Pence’s decision to defy Trump over Jan. 6 and appear ready to run against him.

“The fear factor is gone for a lot of consultants and some politicians who otherwise were worried about crossing him,” said one top Republican consultant who, nonetheless, didn’t want to publicly cross Trump and spoke on condition of anonymity.

As Maggie Haberman noted on Twitter, it’s ironic that the “Fear factor” quote was made anonymously, but Caputo also found a decent handful of GOP sources who were willing to be named while assessing the viability of a non-Trump candidate. And he’s not the only one; increasingly, Republican insiders are willing to put their names on quotes that encourage a challenge to Trump.

But unless Trump does end up in jail for the 2024 election, the rest of the field has its work cut out for them: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is the closest thing to a credible challenger, and he trails Trump by around 20 points in most polls — although he cracked single-digits in one poll earlier this week.