last week for instance former attorney
general eric holder said he expected the
department of justice if it finds
sufficient information and proof of
intent that
would have to indict donald trump and
hold him accountable for his attempt to
overturn the election
holder's new book is titled our
unfinished march the violent past and
imperiled future vote a history a crisis
a plan and eric holder joins me now
um
i know that uh you are loathed to do any
second guessing or coaching
of the man who now occupies the office
that you had uh and
i'm sure uh when you're in that office
you didn't like to be coached or second
guessed yourself
but in an abstract sense
just take me through your understanding
of the evidence that's accruing and the
decision process that would happen
inside a department of justice
about questions about indictments with
respect to people from the president or
his own circle
for the kinds of crimes that other
people at lower levels along the chain
have already been indicted
well you certainly got to draw the
connections and show that they were
substantively involved and also show
that they had the requisite intent you
know i started my career as a public
corruption prosecutor and after a while
these kinds of matters get uh get a
sense of direction of where they're
heading and i'm at that point now
after the revelations from the january 6
committee the great job the journalists
have done in revealing a whole variety
of things i think you get a sense of the
direction of this and i think that
you're going to end up with high-level
prosecutions of people close to donald
trump i think people at the justice
department are certainly going to be
examined um certainly people who were
involved in the matter actually there on
january the 6th and people who directed
them
and the question ultimately is what
happens um to the ex-president
my guess is going to be the is that
they're going to have sufficient
substantive proof they're going to be
able to show that you have the requisite
um intent and what i've said before if
that is the case i think he has to be
held accountable i've said you know
that's going to be a very divisive thing
and i got a lot of criticism for that
but i think that is a legitimate thing
that can be taken into consideration how
divisive that would be but i also think
it has to be balanced against the notion
of accountability and really most
importantly deterrence we cannot allow
what happened on january the 6th to uh
go unpunished because they would invite
something like that to happen again in
the future future people who would
consider doing something like this have
to be deterred yeah i want to follow up
on that given uh some of the races we
see around the country but just one more
question about this because you know you
talk about public corruption right so
it's not like uh the department of
justice has never indicted politicians
before in fact it happens fairly
frequently i used to practice journalism
in chicago or basically happened every
week um you've got you know a very whole
private profile prosecution of the the
the district attorney for for for
baltimore marilyn mosby and her husband
also a politician right so this this
kind of thing happens
there's a kind of human and
institutional calculation that happens
in that context even when you're not
talking about donald trump just any
place we're going to bring a high
profile corruption case against an
elected official what is the thinking
there in the general sense even when
you're not talking about someone as high
profiles donald trump or is possibly
divisive about how you how you think
through a case like that
i i think the president is really
fundamentally different from almost any
other um any other person any other
office in terms of thinking about what
the collateral impacts are yeah
i mean you know
if you're going to think about the vice
president maybe that those kinds of
considerations
into your mind as well and i i don't
mean to say that because he's president
he is beyond reach or was president he
is beyond reached not that at all but
taking into account what the national
impact of this case or a potential case
um would be is certainly something that
i think can be legitimately considered
um by uh the prosecutor who has to make
that that ultimate determination
but having said that having said that
and understanding that this is going to
divide the nation
i think a non-prosecution would divide
the nation as well and if we don't have
that deterrent impact coming out of the
consideration of what happened on
january the 6th we put this republic at
risk in the future yeah i mean that you
know i've said this before the program
but you know coups happened in certain
places or attempted self coups they they
happen throughout history they happen in
different countries in different regions
they tend to go one of two ways right
they're successful
in which case the people seize power and
they could do whatever they want to
their political enemies or they're not
successful the people that fail you know
they tend to get arrested or worse right
it's not that often that you get like an
attempt and then
it doesn't work out and everyone just
kind of says well which is a little bit
of what's happened here and you see it
in the in the crop of of republican
candidates doug mostriano as we've
covered on this program is going to be
the the nominee in the gubernatorial
race in pennsylvania you know he very
actively talked about and sought to
replace the electors duly elected by the
people of pennsylvania and sub in uh you
know donald trump electors and i just
wonder what you think
you're someone who's very focused on the
integrity and strength of our democracy
we're going to talk about your book in a
second what it says to you about the
fact that mastriano can occupy this
position you know two years after this
happened a year after this happened
well i think that says a lot of really
disturbing things about the republican
party the notion that a person who was
actually engaged in what happened on
january the 6th whether he went in the
building or not a person who says that
the election was stolen that there was
fraud when in fact there's no proof at
all that that is in fact the case
the person who appears to want to
substitute you know his candidate donald
trump for the legitimately elected
person um joe biden should not be the
next governor of pennsylvania and my
hope would be that that will be a
central part of the campaign democrats
need to focus on this we need to be the
pro-democracy party up and down the
ballot that needs to be talked about for
people with regard to people who are
running for it for governor for senator
uh for other elected offices
every republican needs to be asked do
you think that joe biden is the
legitimately elected president of the
united states or do you think that the
election was stolen from donald trump
they need to be forced to answer those
questions
um you've got a new book out about
voting rights which find themselves in a
very perilous situation right now and
you've been very involved in
redistricting which of course is related
to that
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you