President Donald Trump's Justice Department is signifying something clear by pursuing a federal indictment of Cassidy Hutchinson, MS NOW's Alex Wagner told Nicolle Wallace on Thursday: Trump is desperate and on the back foot.
Hutchinson, a star witness in the January 6 investigation, made a number of explosive claims that Trump and his allies have consistently denied, such as that Trump lunged at his driver to try to take the car to join the protesters. A grand jury was reportedly presented with evidence that she lied to Congress in her testimony.
Wallace noted the "timeline" of the investigations into Trump.
"So she testifies," said Wallace. "Jack Smith then does an investigation, you know, largely away from public view. But he testified, I think about ten days ago, and said given the same set of facts, he would absolutely indict Donald Trump for the same crimes related to January 6th." With that being the case, Wallace asked Wagner, why is Trump "bringing [this] back into the fore publicly?"
"He's got nothing else," said Wagner bluntly.
This comes, she continued, amid Trump's fruitless efforts to charge a "grand conspiracy" case in Florida against every law enforcement official who ever investigated him — a case "that not even Trump true believers and election deniers like Joe diGenova and Kurt Olsen want to be a part of. I mean, they've got nothing there, but it's his Rosetta Stone. It's his Rosebud ... it's the ultimate injustice."
Ultimately, Wagner added, "I have to say, I am struck by how dark and retributive this president has gotten even this week. Yesterday in the Oval Office, he said he could do very bad things to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and that he can do whatever he wants. We're now entering the stage of, I don't know whether grief or denial, where he's facing a real comeuppance in November and he is going at his perceived enemies with everything he can muster."
The bottom line, she said, is that "when faced with reality, he retreats to his darkest corners."