MSNBC’s Chris Hayes sounded the alarm for the Resistance to stand against the “authoritarian decline” he claimed has been brought on under President Donald Trump’s administration.
In a long-winded monologue during “All In with Chris Hayes” on Friday, the MSNBC host unloaded on Trump following the left’s meltdown over his alleged intervention in the Department of Justice, declaring that the president has “been openly assaulting” it.
(Source: MSNBC)
Hayes also targeted the president’s “handpicked bagman,” Attorney General William Barr, for his actions in the past week, including his decisions in the case of Trump ally Roger Stone.
“It’s important to say the only thing standing between the rule of law and a kind of authoritarian decline is us,” Hayes declared. “The laws we have, the institutions we have, those are all vitally important. But fundamentally, we are what stands in the way.”
He claimed the DOJ is “currently being openly subverted and corrupted in front of our eyes by the president,” as he went on to present a history lesson on the FBI and Justice Department.
Hayes argued that abuses by past presidents, focusing on Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, as well as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, created an “existential” and “dangerous” threat to the rule of law which prompted reforms to be put in place.
“One of the biggest reforms was establishing a wall between the president and the Department of Justice on certain matters,” he explained.
“And the most important of all of these norms, the most important, is the separation between the White House and the president, and the Department of Justice on criminal matters and investigations,” Hayes told his audience.
“Look around the world right now. In dozens of countries, the prosecutorial function of the government is used by strongmen everywhere as a tool of pursuing and harassing and purging political opponents,” he added, pointing to an example in Russia with President Vladimir Putin’s federal investigators.
“Do we think that’s because he is an incorrigible crook? Or because Putin is clearly using the prosecutorial power to target his political enemies? And that is what is so dangerous about where we are as I’m talking to you. There is nothing specifically and explicitly in our constitution that says you can’t do that,” Hayes said.
He then rattled off what he claimed were examples of that abuse by Trump, from his 2016 presidential campaign through threats against former FBI officials, James Comey and Andrew McCabe, and recently his comments about allies such as Stone.
“We’ve known from the time he was on the campaign trail, Trump wants to do that. He wants to use the Department of Justice against his enemies the same way Putin does. He literally ran on, “Lock her up!” Hayes insisted.
“He tweeted at the first Attorney General Jeff Sessions all the time, time and time again, to investigate his political rivals. We know the president wanted James Comey prosecuted. We know that, thanks to the Washington Post, he hit the roof when they declined to prosecute Comey,” he claimed, adding that one of the reasons Trump wanted McCabe prosecuted is “because his wife is a Democrat.”
“That is some like real authoritarian stuff,” the MSNBC host pronounced.
Hayes pointed to a tweet from the president that day in which he had noted that he has the “legal right” to intervene in DOJ criminal prosecutions.
“The President has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case.” A.G. Barr This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 14, 2020
“Again, here’s the thing, in the most literal sense he is not wrong. There is nothing spelled out in the Constitution or spelled out in law that forbids this,” Hayes explained.
“But that does not mean there is no check,” he added. “The restraint, the thing stopping the president from doing whatever he wants are people – mobilizing and organizing and calling switchboards of Congress and civil servants resigning inside the Department of Justice like those folks did and telling us what they know. Heck, people marching and protesting outside the Department of Justice if that’s what it takes, because the only thing to stop him is us.”
Hayes spent over 10 minutes on the topic and, in the end, Twitter users mocked his advanced stage of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
So his not wrong but he needs to be stopped !
Lol DTS …….
— girlfromoz (@girlfromoz1) February 15, 2020
This guy is so far off the deep end, wow he is lost. What an ignorant cry baby!
— FAX Kellerman (@FaxKellerman1) February 15, 2020
So Hayes has joined the Futurecrime Police now? Like Adam Schiff, does Chris want to impeach the President on the basis that Trump might possibly do something that might, arguably, be impeachable, at some time in the future, which could help him get re-elected.
— RealFurgas (@RealFurgas) February 15, 2020
Yea, real nice impartial journalism.
— Rodger Dodger (@I_Am_Rodger) February 15, 2020
??? I know Trump is worried now
— Duh Wrench (@PaulGavigan4) February 15, 2020
there’s not a republican on the planet that’s near is authoritarian as liberals!
they hate free speech , they want government control of everything, that’s authoritarian— Anji Passion (@AnjiPassion) February 15, 2020
During Obama’s administration he stepped in at least three times and got the DOJ to change charges. Nobody in the media cared. What this guy is doing looks a lot like advocacy, not journalism.
— Dronetek (@Dronetek) February 15, 2020
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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