Psaki: "Obviously There's A Big Difference Between What Happened To Trump And What He's Now Promising To Do To Democrats"www.realclearpolitics.com MSNBC host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday warned former President Donald Trump and his allies are going to overhaul the justice system and go on a revenge streak against Democrats.
Psaki said Trump wants "justifiable revenge" following his trial and noted, "obviously there's a big difference between what happened to Trump and what he's now promising to do to Democrats or anyone who he's mad at."
"Ever since a jury of 12 Americans convicted Donald Trump on 34 felony counts, Trump and his Republican allies have used this as an opportunity to spin up their long-held plans for revenge. You know, just some justifiable retribution against their perceived enemies," Psaki said in a monologue on Monday's broadcast of 'Inside with Jen Psaki.'
"Obviously there's a big difference between what happened to Trump and what he's now promising to do to Democrats or anyone who he's mad at," Psaki declared. "Despite what the former president and his allies claim, Trump was legitimately investigated, indicted, tried, and convicted unanimously by a jury of his peers... What Trump and his allies want is not trying to hold people accountable for actual wrongdoing. They're trying to reshape the American justice system to make it a political tool to go after Democrats or anyone who has done Trump wrong."
"And by the way, this plan completely predates Trump's convictions and indictments. It's what they had in mind all along," she said.
From Psaki's monologue:
JEN PSAKI, MSNBC HOST: Ever since a jury of 12 Americans convicted Donald Trump on 34 felony counts, Trump and his Republican allies have used this as an opportunity to spin up their long-held plans for revenge -- you know, some justifiable retribution against their perceived enemies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RONNY JACKSON (R-TX): And what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And I -- I'm going to encourage all of my colleagues and everybody that I have any influence over as a member of Congress to aggressively go after the president and his entire family.
STEPHEN MILLER, FOUNDER OF AMERICA FIRST LEGAL: Is every House committee controlled by Republicans using subpoena power in every way it needs to right now? Is every D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?
TIM POOL, PODCAST HOST: Should Democrats be in jail? No question. When Donald Trump gets elected, should he start locking them up? No question. Should there be a list of Democrats that need to go to jail? One hundred percent.
TRUMP: Wouldn't that be a terrible thing? But they want to do it. So, you know, it's -- it's a terrible, terrible path that they're leading us to. And it's very possible that it's going to have to happen to them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PSAKI: So, in their description, as you just heard, it's all about karma. An eye for an eye, fighting fire with fire, that's their story they're telling over and over again. And it's the one that far too many headline writers are also running with.
As Greg Sargent of "The New Republic" put in his latest column, quote: In the media, the story tends to be framed as follows: Will Trump seek revenge for his legal travails, or won't he? But that framing unwittingly lets Trump set the terms of this debate. It implies that he is vowing to do to Democrats what was done to him.
You see, obviously, there is a big difference between what happened to Trump and what he's now promising to do to Democrats or anyone who he's mad at. Despite what the former president and his allies claim, Trump was legitimately investigated, indicted, tried, and convicted unanimously by a jury of his peers, 12 everyday Americans. There was a legal basis and evidence for all of it. All presented during a six-week trial.
What Trump and his allies want is not kind of deliberative due process. They're not trying to hold people accountable for actual wrongdoing. They're trying to reshape the American justice system, to make it a political tool to go after Democrats or anyone who has done Trump wrong.
And political prosecutions, remember, were a major goal for the MAGA movement long before Trump got indicted or convicted. I was reminded of this, this weekend. "The Washington Post" published an incredibly eye popping piece on the influential figure in Trump's orbit that you might not be familiar with. I mean, for what it's worth, I had never really heard of the guy either.
He's the former director of the Office of Management and Budget. And his name is Russ Vought. According to the piece, he is a potential chief of staff in a second Trump term. He could wield a lot of power.
Vought is a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist who crafted parts of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 on how to remake the executive branch in a Trump presidency. And then back in September of 2022, before Trump got indicted or even entered the presidential race, Vought wrote an essay saying the left had dragged America into a, quote, post-constitutional moment. Saying it was time for the right to reinterpret the Constitution in a radical new way.
He encouraged conservatives, quote, to throw off precedents and legal paradigms that have wrongly developed over the last 200 years. In their place, according to "The Post", he laid out plans for, quote, Donald Trump to deploy the military, to quash civil unrest, use more control over the Justice Department and assert the power to withhold congressional appropriations. And that's just on Trump's first day back in office, according to Vought.
Let's just pause on that. He's not calling for accountability through due process of the law, to hold people accountable. He wants to reshape the system for the purpose of punishing Trump's perceived enemies.
And last year, he told the Heritage Foundation crowd, quote, the Department of Justice is not an independent agency. And if anyone brings up in a policy meeting in the White House, I want them out of the meeting.
So, here's the larger picture: outside of the week to week news cycle and the latest Republican reactions, the Republican line of "fight fire with fire" that you hear over and over again is really just cover for framing a plan to overhaul the justice system and executive branch at large. And by the way, this plan completely predates Trump's convictions and indictments. It's what they had in mind all along.