investigation, and that s what the rule of law is all about. so if donald trump did nothing wrong, he should accept the findings of the special counsel, but if he did something wrong, he should be very worried that, you know, this team will find out and under a true rule of law system, he ll be held to account. are you worried about the special timeline of this investigation? the special counsel says this will happen expeditiously, but he has to read in, ramp up, bring in the team. what do you think? i was a prosecutor before coming to congress, and, you know, these investigations take time, and especially an investigation of this magnitude, you only get one shot because you re going to have to prove this before a jury if you indict and it s going to have to withstand multiple appeals, probably all the way up to the supreme court. so you want to get it right, and victor, i get it. people are frustrated. donald trump has tested us time
and ultimately, i think this analysis that merrick garland really didn t want to be the first president, first attorney general, to indict a president. didn t want to do that because he was afraid or week by because he believed in retaining a constitutional rule of law system, and is ultimately being moved towards that decision, in large part, because of the former presidents lack of any show of recalcitrance. lack of acceptance that he lost the election. lack of willingness to support democracy, even at this late stage. that merrick garland will have to ultimately view this evidence as evidence of criminal culpability, and take that very important step to indict and to prosecute. and it will be more powerful when he does it because of his hesitance. it will mean that he will have dotted all his eyes and crossed his t s. there will not be gaps in the evidence, no legal flies when he makes a decision to indict. instead, he will be so focused on preserving the strength of
used to have a security clearance, the idea of someone taking that home is disturbing. and former president trump like any american has a right to due process. any american accused of a serious crime like this and if he has concerns about the manner in which this took place, he ll have every opportunity to make those concerns known in a court of law and it will be adjudicated in the way it always is in our rule of law system. i ll at the you what i m more concerned about. whatever president trump may have done or not done that will be determined by the courts. what i m more concerned about is politicians going on tv and calling federal law enforcement the nazi gestapo, calling the united states of america a banana republic. i love this country, i revere our institutions and our democracy and it s incredibly dangerous to have responsible leaders in this country turning americans, turning americans angry and hateful, not just
let s bring in now timothy snyder, a professor of history at yale and author of the book on tyranny, 20 lessons from the 20th century and has studied authoritarian regimes. professor snyder, so good to see you. glad to be with you. let s begin with the investigation, is there any historic precedent for this fight we are currently seeing over executive privilege? well, of course, i mean, very broadly, there is a historic precedent. normally in a democratic rule of law system, none of us is above the law. we make a partial exception, it seems, for the president while he s in office b, but what we r talking about now is whether a private citizen is immune from the law because he has some private relationship with the president. what history tells us is that that s basically an authoritarian situation. if the chums of the leader are above the law, then you don t have law anymore. and you were one of the first
our leadership depends on the power of our example and the consistency of our purpose. both have now been opened to question. joining our conversation just in time former senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. your thoughts? she asked a haunting question, nicole. her testimony was compelling and dignified. but she asked how could our system fail like this. here s the answer, i think. our system is the rule of law system that we love and have worked for most of our professional lives is a construct, right? it only exists because people of good will, men and women of good will ensure that it exists and flourishes and perseveres. when if i were to drop the pen, it would hit the ground anywhere i dropped it. but the rule of law doesn t work like the law of gravity. it depends on the good will of people to preserve it.