(Photographer: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Do you know what today is? Unless you’ve been living under a rock you know that today is the start of the first criminal prosecution of a former president. Jury selection in the New York hush money trial begins today and you’re about to hear a lot of hot takes. And, to a certain extent, that makes sense — it is unprecedented after all.
And Donald Trump is feeding the spectacle of it all, taking to social media to rail against the consequences of his own actions, as is his wont. MAGA-land has fallen into line, trying to downplay the historic event with his attorney calling the trial a “six-week-long media extravaganza” and his campaign spokesperson referring to it as a “witch trial.”
But not everyone is buying that assessment. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a Harvard Law grad, appeared on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” talking about the “very serious case.”
“Well, you know, Trump’s people would like to trivialize and diminish the meaning of this trial, but in fact it’s perfectly emblematic of the others that are out there,” Raskin said.
He went on, “They’re all about electoral interference and manipulation. They tried it with violence and we’re gonna see that in the D.C. case. They tried it with fraud. We’re gonna see that in the Georgia case. And here, they tried it with payoffs and then cooking the books. Financial manipulation. That’s what it’s about, it’s a very serious case and I think the Trump people are going to be shocked how tuned-in America is to what’s going on here.”
And we’ll all be watching.
Check out Raskin’s appearance below.
“It’s a very serious case. I think the Trump people are going to be shocked how tuned in America is to what’s going on here.” @RepRaskin on the start of Donald Trump’s criminal trial. pic.twitter.com/aQBjTvOkc4
— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) April 14, 2024
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.