Trying Trump's "Crimes against Democracy"

Diane Rehm: On My Mind

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🗓️ 3 August 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

Special counsel Jack Smith announced charges against Donald Trump this week related to the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

This is the third time Trump has been indicted in recent months – but many commentators are saying this is the big one. That includes New York University law professor Ryan Goodman, who says the crimes Trump is accused of committing are a direct threat to our government, calling them “democracy crimes.”

Goodman, co-editor in chief of Just Security, joined Diane to outline the charges and explain why he thinks only a 2024 election victory can save Donald Trump from conviction.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Diane. On my mind, the latest indictment of Donald Trump. On Tuesday, special counsel
0:14.5	Jack Smith announced charges against the former president, related to his efforts to overturn
0:23.1	the 2020 election. It says the third time Donald Trump has been indicted in recent months,
0:31.3	but many commentators are saying this is the big one. If he is not reelected, he will be convicted.
0:41.2	Ryan Goodman is a professor in New York University School of Law and co-editor and chief at the
0:49.8	online forum, just security. He joined me Thursday morning, the four Trump's
0:56.9	arraignment, to walk us through the charges, and to explain why he thinks this is the case that DOJ
1:06.2	had to bring. Ryan, I wonder if you would compare the significance of this case brought by Jack
1:24.0	Smith to the other indictment and sit down on Trump faces? I think it's greatest significance
1:31.6	is in the kind of context of what these crimes are all about, which is the direct threat to American
1:39.7	democracy. So you can almost like thinking these as democracy crimes or something like that.
1:45.3	It's an enormously impressive indictment that is laying out all of the charges essentially
1:53.0	that many were expecting across the board of Trump's multi-pronged conspiracy to interrupt the
2:01.7	transfer of power in the United States. So that's just the gravity of the indictment, I think,
2:10.2	is much more significant in a sense of how it compares to the other indictments that have come
2:16.4	and are coming in all likelihood against Trump. Though the Mar-a-Lago classified documents,
2:22.9	one I do think is a very serious national security case with dramatic implications for protection
2:31.1	of US secrets and harm to US sources and methods of acquiring intelligence information. So I do
2:37.2	think that one has its own significance as well. I'd probably rank it second. And then the only
2:42.4	other dimension I might mention that we could get into is just the idea that the two I just
2:47.4	mentioned are the federal crimes and the federal charges, but the state ones have their own
2:51.4	significance in that it might be more difficult for Trump or any Republican president if they
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