MSNBC's Joe Scarborough busted Donald Trump's "cynical" gambit to announce a run for president to avoid prosecution for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The House select committee has laid out the evidence against the former president that could result in multiple criminal charges, and he's facing possible prosecution in Georgia and New York as he weighs a third campaign for the White House, but the "Morning Joe" host said Trump was making a calculation to stay ahead of investigators.
"He knows he is not going to win, he knows he's not -- he can't -- no chance of winning," Scarborough said. "He knew he had a chance of winning in 2016, he knows he is not going to win in 2024. He knows it. He also knows that you have an attorney general who, many on the right and the left believe, is afraid of his own shadow. So if Merrick Garland's afraid to bring charges when Donald Trump is not running, Donald Trump has cynically concluded that Merrick Garland is too weak to bring charges against a man who very clearly broke the law on Jan. 6."
Trump clearly directed the violent insurrection in a final push to remain in power, according to evidence shown by the House select committee, after his legal challenges failed and he was unable to persuade various officials to help him overturn his loss, and Scarborough said he should pay a price for those crimes.
READ: Exclusive: All 50 Senate Republicans weigh in on Jan. 6 hearings – only 8 are watching
"We've been dancing around this thing about conspiracy to commit sedition," Scarborough said. "Jan. 6 was about treason, treason against the United States, against the United States of America. He tried to overthrow the United States government and put himself, through the use of fascist force, put himself in the place of the duly elected president of the United States, and so Donald Trump knows he's in big trouble."
"He's just hoping that if he announces he is running for president, that Republicans will be too stupid and too distracted to actually understand the need to have justice for somebody who committed treason against the United States," he added. "I'm sure he is cynically thinking that Merrick Garland will be too weak to follow through on what he has a responsibility to do, and prove once again that, in America, no man is above the law."
Watch the segment below or at this link.
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