Andrew Weissmann, as any MSNBC viewer probably knows, was a lead prosecutor in the Mueller investigation and general counsel to the FBI. He has also prosecuted the heads of some of the most notorious mob families. He’s a guy who’s been around the block with both Donald Trump and the worst of the worst criminals.
So Weissmann’s comments on MSNBC Thursday made me sit up and take notice.
In a discussion about the looming third set of criminal charges against Donald Trump, this time for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, host Nicolle Wallace sounded almost triumphant as she said Trump’s defense for this set of charges has already been “annihilated by Trump-supporting Republicans” who have said publicly they were unwilling to break the law for Trump.
Weissmann agreed but also hinted that that makes this a moment of significant peril. He predicted that even more than in Trump’s Manhattan indictment over hush money to Stormy Daniels and more than in the stolen/misused classified documents case in Florida, the coming charges will bring “a real assault on the courts and the rule of law.”
The reason, Weissmann explained, is because the other cases provided “some cover” for Trump defenses such as “What about Biden?” in the classified documents case. Now, Trump is flaunting his criminal behavior. As Weissmann put it, “What really is happening now is the former president saying, ‘Yeah, I violated the law. What’s it to you?’”
In other words, without any good defense, Trump and his cult of MAGA democracy-haters have no option but to go on offense against our laws and law enforcement.
“I think that is the reason you are seeing Donald Trump praise the people who were attacking the Capitol,” Weissmann said. “That's why you see Marjorie Taylor Greene going to the prison where people who have been convicted of participating in that insurrection and heralding them."
“And I think what you're going to see is just a flat-out assault on the rule of law and the courts more than in any of the other criminal cases,” Weissmann continued. Then he added that the Jan. 6 case “will be the most important of the criminal cases.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that Trump should be indicted for subverting democracy and our election. But the situation reminds me of the Chinese word for crisis: two characters meaning opportunity and danger.
