MSNBC's Joe Scarborough drew a straight line between Russian election interference in 2016 and Donald Trump's failed scheme to overturn his 2020 election loss.
The "Morning Joe" host said the former president was willing to lie and cheat to "sow confusion" about each election in which he was a candidate, and he said Republicans have excused and even assisted those efforts, which have resulted in multiple indictments -- including Trump himself -- and convictions.
"It wasn't about, actually, having a system that works, a process that works," Scarborough said, referring to the fake electors scheme. "They knew the Supreme Court was going to overturn it. It was about creating the delay, creating the chaos, and if riots happened, as they said, 'That's why we have the Army, that's why we have the Insurrection Act, then we can use the Insurrection Act, get the Army in the street, put down the riots from people whose votes have been stolen, and Trump can declare martial law,' which is basically what they're talking about doing."
"This is what Russia was trying to do in 2016, this is what Russia admitted that they were trying to do in 2016," Scarborough continued. "This is what the head of the Wagner Group bragged about, saying, 'Remember how successful our campaign was in America in 2016? I mean, come on -- Russian hoax? You shame yourself every day. You shame yourself every day if you don't see a linkage here, if you don't see the linkage of the Russians trying to sow confusion, and then Donald Trump on his own, learning from people that he's always admired, on his own, to just create a process that will sow confusion, that's illegal, that will sow delay, and if he's lucky, will create riots in the streets, and they can use the Insurrection Act to declare martial law."
"You call it free speech!" he added. "I call it un-American, and guess what, most Americans agree with me and not you. You're disgusting! You're absolutely disgusting if you're going to forgive this type of behavior."
Republicans have sought to compare the former president's alleged crimes to Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings, but Scarborough said the two situations weren't even remotely similar.
"Over here, we're talking about an illegal scheme to overthrow an election, to get riots in the streets so Donald Trump can declare martial law, and you're saying there's some sort of legal equivalency, there's some sort of moral equivalency?" he said. "That's grotesque, and what's so sad for you, is you know it's grotesque. The entire Republican establishment knows it's gross. You've got a guy trying to steal an election, and you've got a prosecutor that's trying to bring him to justice, and if this guy were a Democrat, you would already have him locked up."
"Jack Smith is trying to bring this guy to justice, and what do you do?" Scarborough added. "You sit back silently, you talk about, oh, two standards of justice, and then you're silent as Donald Trump threatens a federal prosecutor, an officer of the United States court system, saying, 'I'm coming after you' – silence."
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