Jan. 6 was not the climax of Trump and the Republican fascists’ campaign to subvert the Constitution, demolish the rule of law and overthrow democracy. That day was just one more chapter in Trump’s lawlessness and contempt for democracy. Trump’s presidency was itself an extension of a much larger pattern: Throughout his decades of public life, he has behaved like a crime boss with no respect for anything or anyone beyond his own narrow self-interest and his bottomless hunger for power and wealth.
Ultimately, the Jan. 6 insurrection was just the beginning. Donald Trump and the Republicans’ assault on democracy is only escalating as the midterms approach and the future of the country hangs on the precipice. What happens next? What are Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice waiting for? What does justice look like? Will Donald Trump and the other coup plotters ever be prosecuted and punished?
Glenn Kirschner is a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC who teaches criminal law at George Washington University. For most of his 30-year career in law enforcement, Kirschner was an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., often prosecuting serious crimes in federal court, and before that was a prosecutor and appellate attorney in the U.S. Army.
In this conversation, Kirschner describes Donald Trump as a “ruling-class criminal” who serves as living proof of how the rich and the powerful often evade justice in America. Trump’s contempt for the rule of law is understandable, since he has never been held properly accountable for his lawbreaking. This time, Kirschner says, Trump may finally gone too far.
R&I ~ MJM
Captain