Chris Hayes Argues ‘No Matter What Happens,’ the Trump Trial Was ‘a Victory’: ‘No One Is Above the Law’ | Video
While MSNBC’s Chris Hayes thinks the ultimate outcome of Donald Trump’s New York City criminal trial is important, he told viewers during Wednesday’s episode of “All In” that there’s a bigger picture.
“No matter what happens, I really do believe that the process has already been a victory for the rule of law,” Hayes said.
Hayes began Wednesday’s episode bringing viewers up to speed on how the jury in Trump’s trial began deliberations. “But one consistent rule of law juries is that you just do not know what they’re going to do. When you put 12 random strangers in a room. The outcome is never obvious. But we do know that there are three possibilities broadly: The jury could acquit Donald Trump on any or all of the 34 counts against them. All trial jurors have to agree on that unanimously. We can get a hung jury if all pro jurors cannot agree either way. It only takes one holdout for that outcome. Or the jury could decide to convict Trump if they unanimously agree he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.
“Again, there are 34 separate felony counts at play here. So this can be mixed and matched in a variety of ways,” Hayes added.
“Understandably, a lot of people were very invested in the outcome of this trial. I do think it matters. But no matter what happens, I really do believe that the process has already been a victory for the rule of law,” he continued, calling the trial “a rebuttal to the worst, most dangerous aspects of Trumpism.”
“The fact that former President was investigated, charged and tried by a jury of his peers shows that no one is above the law in America,” Hayes went on. “Of course, that’s not Donald Trump’s vision of law. In his view, there is no such thing crucially, as a neutral free and fair process like a trial or an election. All that matters is outcome. If he wins it was fair, if he loses it was rigged.”
“He has said this about everything from his legal trials to multiple presidential elections to the Emmy Awards. That is Donald Trump’s authoritarian view of the world… It is the opposite of our core civic commitments of equal rights, equal protections and equal justice under the law, that we are all subject to the same fair processes and then we respect the outcomes of those processes,” Hayes said.
Hayes pointed to the example of other countries that have tried former leaders, acknowledging that Trump’s trial, America’s first such legal proceeding, “is going to be test for America.”
“Now with the first trial Donald Trump nearing its conclusion, this principle of equal justice for all in America is a pretty bedrock one,” Hayes continued, adding that he admits this is no longer a consensus considering how many Republican politicians “all reject it.”
But Hayes called the trial “a real success in its own right. For weeks, Don comes out to sit in the courtroom for justice is day in day out dispense to regular citizens. For us to judge who was fair and firm what both sides presented their cases to a jury of his peers. All that happened while another group of Trump lawyers are trying to convince the Supreme Court that he actually has a special status as a foreign president. He’s a special kind of citizen unbound by the normal processes of mere mortals.”
Noting that despite Trump’s wealth, “he went through the full process of the trials any person accused of a crime would,” Hayes argued “that’s what’s at stake in this New York courtroom and is what is at stake in the Supreme Court’s impending decision about Trump’s so called presidential immunity. Ultimately, our entire liberal democratic order rises and falls on our ability to produce fair and neutral processes that apply equally to everyone and lead to outcomes we can all trust. If it fails. We have Trumpism authoritarianism. So whatever the jury decides in Trump’s case is not actually as important as that process. The trial of Donald Trump I believe, has proven that that process works independent of the outcome. And that alone is a rebuke of everything that Trump and his movement Stand for.”
Watch the clip above now.
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