“Lock Him Up!”
In May 2019, Hillary Clinton sat down with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and discussed Donald Trump’s malfeasance with the 2016 presidential election. “I’m living rent-free inside of Donald Trump’s brain, and it’s not a very nice place to be,” Clinton claimed, explaining that Trump loyalists were attacking her to “fire up their hard-core base.” She then put it bluntly: “The real story is the Russians interfered in our election. And Trump committed obstruction of justice. That’s the real story.”
On Monday night, a Georgia grand jury indicted Donald Trump relating to the 2020 presidential election (which occurred a year and a half after that interview), charging him with felony racketeering and conspiracy as the head of a “criminal enterprise” aimed at overturning the election results. Hillary Clinton happened to be on The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss a recent essay as the news broke, and so she offered Maddow her insightful reaction.
Clinton said that having “a former president accused of these terribly important crimes” is a “terrible moment for our country. Maddow then asked Clinton if she feels satisfaction, after having warned the country in vain that Trump would try to end democracy. Clinton replied that she does not feel any satisfaction but rather “great, profound sadness.”
Clinton reminded the audience of how the public record already shows that Trump “set out to defraud the United States of America and the citizens of our nation” through harassment, intimidation, and threats. However, Clinton then pointed out that the one positive aspect of Trump’s indictments is that it shows “the system is working.” Trump’s efforts to “silence the truth” and “undermine democracy” are now under the spotlight and “justice is being pursued.” Indeed, Trump’s twisted projection and diversion campaign of “lock her up!” has officially failed.
Ron Leshnower is a lawyer and the author of several books, including President Trump’s Month