Raskin: Trump could face the rest of his life ‘behind bars’

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., joined Yahoo News’ “Skullduggery” podcast and discussed the evidence revealed by the Jan. 6 committee and how it implicates former President Donald Trump in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Raskin said, “I'm very serious about him facing the consequences” of his actions, adding that Trump could spend “the remaining days of his misanthropic life behind bars.”

Video Transcript

DANIEL KLAIDMAN: Congressman, you did a lot more than just make recommendations to the Justice Department to prosecute Donald Trump on these four offenses. You also developed a huge evidentiary record. You unearthed a lot of evidence, a lot of bombshells, and you assembled it in a very powerful narrative. Give us your-- tell us what you think is the most important new evidence that this committee developed in its investigation.

JAMIE RASKIN: New evidence since when?

DANIEL KLAIDMAN: Since the events of January 6, I mean.

JAMIE RASKIN: Oh, well, a lot of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony recreated the scene of Donald Trump knowing that he had lost the election, and knowing that the crowd was armed and dangerous, nonetheless, insisting on inciting them further, you know, saying, take down the mags, the magnetometers, the metal detectors. Let the people in. They're no threat to me, he essentially said.

And you know, what transpired was precisely what he arranged to happen. It was very clear from multiple witnesses that Donald Trump knew he had lost. He was told by his White House counsel. He was told by the Attorney General of the United States. He was told by his campaign lawyers. He complained to people, can you believe I lost to this guy? He knew he had lost, you know?

Like some great Shakespearean characters, he plays on the fact that some people think he's crazy, so they give him a pass on doing things that they would never accept from someone else. But he knew exactly what he was doing in assembling the mob, and then lighting the flame for them to go and storm the Capitol. That's what he meant when he said you've got to fight like hell, or you're not going to have a country.

DANIEL KLAIDMAN: And he also sounds like he knew that a lot of the voter fraud allegations, dead people voting, felons voting was also false, right, and that it was the committee that was able to prove that in the lawsuit against John Eastman in which those emails emerged.

JAMIE RASKIN: That's right. So there's just deep culpability from the very beginning in everything that Donald Trump did. And no, I'm very serious about him facing the consequences and paying for the cost of his actions. It's just that I think that's not the only thing here. And he could spend the remaining days of his misanthropic life behind bars, presumably, with Secret Service agents, some of whom might belong with him there, you know? I don't know.

- How does that work? Do Secret Service agents protect him inside the prison that he might be sentenced to?

JAMIE RASKIN: Like everything else with Donald Trump, it's a case of first impression. I mean, would they be standing outside the bars, inside the bar, who knows? But the point is that like that fundamentally now is not going to address the primitive forces of authoritarianism, racism, anti-Semitism that Donald Trump has unleashed in the country and set free. And that's to me, the larger concern.

We've got to defend democracy and freedom in America. We got to defend the Constitution and keep things moving in the right direction. And so you know, I don't want the prosecution, and the conviction, and the punishment of Donald Trump to be seen as the be all and the end all, as important as it is.

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