Rep. Jamie Raskin pointed out that there are currently people serving years in jail for counterfeiting one vote while Donald Trump tried to steal an entire election.
Raskin said on NBC’s Meet The Press:
A technical violation of the Constitution is a violation of the Constitution. The Constitution, in six different places opposes insurrection and makes that a grievous constitutional criminal offense, so our Constitution is designed to stop people from trying to overthrow elections and overthrow the government. But in any event, there is a whole apparatus of criminal law that is in place to enforce this constitutional principle. That’s what Donald Trump is charged with violating.
He conspired to defraud the American people out of our right to an honest election by substituting the real legal process we have under federal and state law with counterfeit electors. I mean, there are people who are in jail for several years for counterfeiting one vote if they tried to vote illegally once. He tried to steal the entire election. His lawyer’s up there saying that’s just a matter of him expressing his First Amendment rights. That’s deranged. That’s a deranged argument.
Video:
Jamie Raskin, “There are people who are in jail for several years for counterfeiting one vote…He tried to steal the entire election. His lawyer’s up there saying that’s just a matter of him expressing his First Amendment rights. That’s deranged.” pic.twitter.com/lfgF4SUI5p
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) August 6, 2023
Raskin went on to say that Trump is trying to appoint himself immune from the rule of law. If an individual can get years in prison for voting illegally once, what should happen to someone who tried to steal an entire election? Donald Trump is innocent until proven guilty, but if Trump is convicted, he belongs behind bars.
Maybe not for the rest of his life, but he deserves some sort of legal punishment and confinement.
Trump’s whole argument can be boiled down to claiming that the law and the Constitution don’t apply to him, but if it does, he didn’t do anything wrong.
The argument that Trump’s lawyers are trotting out is a disaster, and as Rep. Raskin put it, the argument is definitely deranged.