Have said, which would have been consonant with the rule of law, is that donald trump, and this i truly think people need to remember this, is presumed innocent under the law unless and until a jury finds that he is guilty of the charges that we will see and that a jury finds that beyond a reasonable doubt, and people need to wait and trust that system. indeed, he s neither above nor below the law. he s a citizen like every other citizen. andrew weissmann, always a pleasure thank you. let s bring in nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. always handy to have a historian around in moments like this. i would love for you to comment on that as well. michael, i think all of us who are sort of absorbing this, there s nothing to be gleeful about, about a former president, whatever his quality being indicted, there s nothing to be happy about, about that. however, it is in some ways a
Evaded before, so people think that s less likely, or why not go to one of the bigger cases. yeah, al capone got in trouble for tax evasion. the d.a. s job is not to compare crimes and decide who goes first. the d.a. s job in new york is to see whether there is a chargeable offense and he found one. as you alluded to, the news has exploded across america tonight. today is the first day of the rest of donald trump s life. he s going to learn very quickly what it s like to be out of control, to be on the other side of this process, to have his life and liberty in the control of other humans. a judge, and a jury, and he is legally presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial by his peers, but he will learn how different it s going to be you know what s interesting is, we re in the business of covering a lot of politics here on both of our shows and covering a lot of spectacle. donald trump is an expert at
Someone who used to be president and currently running to be president again, is caught up in so many allegations of misconduct, of crimes. and so everything changes now. i mentioned this once earlier tonight. we will remember march 30th. it will be marked in the history books. the future is unwritten, whether it s marked at the beginning of a trial that sends someone to prison or the beginning of a process that cleared his name. we can t tell you that and anyone that tries to p prejudge that might be getting ahead of the process but is the end of a period where donald trump was not legally held to account. and today, in the rest of donald trump s life are different, as he learns, perhaps for the first time in his life, what it is to be completely out of control, to have to react to a government and propecsecutorial system whe his antics do not matter
Friends of the president, the documented obstruction of justice by the then-president that was documented by robert mueller in the team that i was a part of. and all of that was so anathema to what many people viewed america stood for, which is the rule of law and something that we thought we were proud of and was a beacon for the rest of the world. and so for today, seeing alvin bragg, you know, and i think it s notable, an african american d.a., has the tenacity, putting up with these kinds of attacks and just keeping his head down is, i think, a sign this country is on track, that
Know, see that the law is followed now, that might sound funny, but that gets complicated in a, in a criminal process even if, even if donald trump has been impeached and removed from office. he is he runs the justice department he s not supposed to run it directly but there s all sorts of complexities, as long as the person is still president, has those powers he has the pardon power. once you re out of office, that changes. and that is why, you know, this has been a long time coming. it s understandable that people have gotten abntsy, wondering wh it was taking so long. now it s here, and i suspect maybe even accelerated by the events of today. you ll have other indictments, too. so you have to give things time sometimes, but now it s