Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner told Newsweek on Saturday that if former President Donald Trump is not treated like any other defendant in his criminal cases, it could be the “downfall” of the United States.
Trump, frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces a total of 91 felony charges in four separate criminal cases, two of which are federal ones. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges maintaining his innocence, accusing prosecutors of a political “witch hunt” against him.
Kirschner, a staunch Trump critic who is also legal analyst for MSNBC, said that there has been an imbalance in how the former president has been treated compared to others in the criminal justice system.
“I think our inability to sort of hold accountable, what I call ruling class criminals, high government officials who obviously broke the law, and hold them accountable the way we would hold anybody else accountable,” Kirschner said via phone to Newsweek. “We just, we can’t do it. We either can’t or won’t do it. And that will be our downfall. The rule of law will be our downfall.”
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Kirschner pointed to Trump’s federal election subversion case in Washington, D.C., as an example of how the former president has been given preferential treatment before the trial has even begun.
“The rule of law provides that if you have a defendant on release in a felony case and there’s clear and convincing evidence that defendant presents a danger to even one single person in the community, that person is to be detained, pending trial,” Kirschner said.
He added: “Judge [Tanya] Chutkan, and don’t take it from me, said in open court, if it were any other defendant on release in a federal felony case and that defendant said the prosecutor handling his case is a ‘deranged thug,’ that person would be in pretrial detention. Donald Trump is not. That is a failure of the people who are obligated to apply the law equally.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s lead defense attorney for the case, John Lauro, via email for comment.
Kirschner was referring to when Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s federal election subversion case, issued a partial gag order on Trump in October, which restricts the former president’s ability to publicly target Department of Justice‘s (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith and his staff, as well as court personnel and potential witnesses. The gag order came after Trump called Chutkan a “biased, Trump Hating Judge” and called Smith “deranged” and a “thug” on Truth Social.
Chutkan said in court at the time that just because Trump “is running a political campaign does not allow him to do whatever he wants.”
Newsweek reached out to Chutkan’s chambers via phone for comment.
The DOJ indicted Trump in August on four counts, including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, as part of Smith’s investigation into the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. On that day, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., where Congress was certifying the results of Biden’s 2020 election win. The riot followed unsubstantiated claims made by the former president that the election was stolen from him via widespread voter fraud.
“I have said that we’re slouching toward the end of our Republic,” Kirschner warned on Saturday. “If the rule of law does not rise up and if the people who are responsible for applying the rule of law equally to all people, if they don’t apply the rule of law equally and they haven’t thus far, then I think we are running the risk of seeing the end of our republic.”
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