decide to pardon richard nixon in 1974, he believed he was doing was in the best interest of the country. he believed that a long protracted trial that could drag on for months or do more harm than good. in his pardon, he wrote, the tranquilly to which this nation has been restored could it be irreparably lost by the prospects of bringing to trial a former president of the united states and quote. there are clear parallels between nixon and donald trump, the first president ever to be impeached twice and the first president who has faced a criminal indictment. but let s be clear, the current times in which we live are vastly different from the watergate era. donald trump must be held to account for his actions. but it is essential to consider the delicate balance between the necessity to prosecute trump, and exacerbating the ever growing polarization in
america. the gop s embrace of americas paranoid fringes is no longer an afterthought. it is a stark reality. trump s presidency has embraced and courage the resurgence of the white nationalist movement whose members now police are nations libraries, our school board meetings, and various venues across america, harassing those who are not aligned with their beliefs. trump s cold like following within the gop has made it politically costly for any republican to deviate from his extremist rhetoric, feeling alienation from the party that demonstrates fealty to him time and time again. trump has also cynically projected his legal woes on to his supporters. painting any indictment of him as an attack on all of them and pledging to get revenge on their behalf. every time the radical left democrats, marxists, communists and fascists indict me, i consider it a badge, a great, beautiful badge of honor and
that the king was not above the law. the bases of the american revolution, therefore was holding the king to the law. and once we had done that, we then wrote up the common law in the form of a written constitution which made it very clear that there would be no king and that nobody would be above the law, the president is someone who holds office for a certain period of time, it is not a special person who is somehow above the law. trump talks about retribution or revenge, what he s doing is he is using a fascist language, he s using language from an entirely different political system, one which says that there is no law, it doesn t matter, there s no difference between the leader and the party and the state and the people, that everything ultimately comes down to the win and the will of one person. if you want to get ourselves into a fascist system, then thing to do as and suggest is to not to prosecute mr. trump s. because the meaningful polarization in this country, i
trump s legal adviser john eastman, as he fought to prevent the january 6th committee from obtaining his emails. in that case, judge david carter agreed with the january six committee that it was likely that they had conspired against the united states, writing quote, dr. eastman and present trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, and action unprecedented in american history, and quote. now that s with him self has referenced this charge, it raises the possibility that others could be indicted alongside the former president. remember, conspiracy, to more people. although so far, no other trump associates are known to have received a target letter in this particular case. joining me now is the president and ceo of citizens for responsibility ethics crew. he also recently wrote a model prosecution memo assessing the possible charges that trump could face in relation to his efforts to interfere with the
you mentioned one in your introduction. this was nixon, the reason why that situation was so different from this one is that nixon was condemned by his own party. republicans in congress, republicans in the country, not all of them, but many of them wanted him to resign and participate in the watergate hearings process. and by the time joe ford became president, there was a consensus, at least within the party leadership, that he was well out of the white house. we don t have that now, we have a republican party that is encouraging trump, that is spreading the same kinds of messages, that is questioning whether january six even was an instruction at all. even though as we know more and more, we have more and more evidence that it was. so in that circumstance, it is a very important that the law proceed further because there isn t anything else that can