Should President Donald Trump be stripped of the office of the presidency? That’s what at least one former federal prosecutor suggests should happen due to Trump’s apparent longstanding relationship with Russia.
Appearing on MSNBC’s AM Joy, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade was asked her thoughts about the latest round of federal filings released by special counsel Robert Mueller and investigators in the Southern District of New York.
Guest host Jonathan Capehart asked McQuade to opine about the significance of Trump’s alleged Russia connections–and his apparent lies about those connections on the campaign trail during the 2016 presidential election.
McQuade offered the following take:
Michael Cohen takes us all the way back to 2015 when they’re having conversations with Russia about putting together this deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow…this is a very significant matter. This isn’t just a regulatory offense when you’re talking about campaign finance violations. It could be that President Trump procured the presidency by fraud.
The former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan then detailed some of the allegations against Trump leveled by the Southern District of New York in the Friday Cohen documents.
“If you look at that filing by the Southern District of New York, they talk about the seriousness of this offense.” McQuade said. “Democracy is all about giving full information to voters so that they can cast a ballot for the candidate of their choice. And by lying and covering up about his past on the eve of the election–and violating the laws designed to create transparency–they say that President Trump clouded the process for American voters.”
McQuade then ended her segment with an immigration-themed thought experiment.
“When immigrants procure their citizenship by fraud, we strip them of their citizenship,” she noted. “When a president procures his presidency by fraud, should we consider doing the same?”
[image via screengrab/MSNBC]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher
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