'Trickle-down criminality': Ex-FBI official slams brazenness that co-conspirators learned from Trump
September 06, 2023
Frank Figliuzzi, former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, said Wednesday the alleged co-conspirators in the Georgia election case were just as brazen as the man they followed.
In a panel discussion with MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, Figliuzzi said that it's the ease with which Donald Trump and his allies allegedly committed crimes that he finds so shocking.
"It is the brazenness, isn't it, that really takes us all aback," he explained. "And where did they get it from? They got it from their leader Donald Trump who was committing crimes in plain sight, lying daily to us all at rallies and press conferences. And so it's that brazenness that's tripped them up."
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He specifically pointed to the Coffee County, Georgia issue when on a national holiday Trump allies sneaked into an election office – and were recorded on security videos.
"It's brazen out in the open," said Figliuzzi. "They don't care, there's cameras, witnesses. Now, what would be interesting if their defense counsel decides, you know what, I am going to use that brazenness and say, would they be taking all these notes? Would they be going in on a holiday weekend conspicuously if, indeed, they thought they were doing something wrong?
"I don't think a jury or judge is going to buy that, but it's noteworthy to say they've adopted the same kind of approach to criminality as Donald Trump has. It's kind of a trickle-down theory of criminality."
He also pointed out that the swiftness of justice in the case is important not only for the country and democracy, but because there were victims in the case, like Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.
"And the threat that is faced when you've got people who already have a track record of lashing out to witnesses in this case and it doesn't appear to be stopping," he also said. "We're seeing it on the federal side, as well, with Jack Smith and telling the court, Trump himself is posing a threat, tainting a jury pool. So we're seeing it here [in Georgia], as well."
He pointed to Ken Chesebro, who he thinks saw that he could be lumped in with Sidney Powell, and said, "I want no part of this crazy over here. This woman has been adjudged by people who have worked with her, at the White House, as 'crazy,' a 'nutcase.' Not my words but others' words. I don't want any part of her. I'm not sitting with her in the front row of any courtroom there's a jury sitting in."
That's what Chesebro lost when a judge ruled he would be tried alongside Powell on Wednesday, said Figliuzzi.
"But, yes, swiftness goes toward the threat picture and the risk picture for witnesses and for everyone else," he also said.
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