Rachel Maddow questioned the motive behind former President Donald Trump’s indictment during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.”
The longtime host of “The Rachel Maddow Show” referenced history when she suggested the Department of Justice could use Thursday’s (June 8) indictment to push the former President out of the 2024 Presidential race.
Maddow expressed having to “wonder” if the DOJ would consider “whether there is some political solution to this criminal problem,” pointing to the resignation of former Vice President Spiro T. Agnew in 1973.
Maddow noted that the issue wasn’t limited to Trump committing crimes but also that he “has committed crimes and plans on being back in the White House.”
Maddow wondered if the DOJ would “consider as part of a potential plea offer” that would “proscribe” the former President from running for Office again.
O’Donnell rejected Maddow’s theory suggesting the GOP’s dynamics have changed since 1973 when Agnew was investigated for bribery, extortion, and income-tax violations.
Maddow replied that she wasn’t saying Trump’s probe would go the way of Agnew, suggesting she was “just saying that is the closest allegory that we’ve got in history.”
On Friday (June 9), Rob Schmitt, host of Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” took to Twitter, calling the dialogue between Maddow and O’Donnell “hilarious,” suggesting it was the mainstream media saying the “quiet part out loud.”
Schmitt later rehashed the dialogue on his show with former assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Clark, who claimed that Maddow was “channeling people that she’s talking to inside the Justice Department.”
On Thursday, a Miami, Florida grand jury indicted Trump on 37 counts related to sensitive documents he kept at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach.
