Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on “The Rachel Maddow Show” Monday night just as news of the fourth indictment against former President Donald Trump was announced on the air.
What Happened: Originally set to appear on Comcast Corporation’s MSNBC channel to talk about an opinion piece written about the politicization of social issues, Clinton reacted in real time to finding out about Trump’s fourth indictment.
“I can’t believe this,” Clinton said, laughing and falling back into her chair, when host Rachel Maddow shared news of the fourth indictment. “Yet another set of indictments.”
Maddow asked Clinton if she felt satisfied with the handful of indictments and charges against Trump, a person who she warned the public about, especially in the days before the 2016 presidential election.
“I don’t feel satisfaction,” Clinton responded. “I feel great, profound sadness that we have a former president who has been indicted for so many charges.”
Clinton said she doesn’t know if anybody should be satisfied by the new indictment against Trump.
“This is a terrible moment for our country to have a former president accused of these terribly important crimes,” she added. “The only satisfaction is that the system is working.”
Clinton, who served as a New York Senator from 2001 to 2009, said that Trump “set out to defraud the United States of America and the citizens of our nation.”
Trump used tactics like harassment and intimidation after the 2020 election was over to try and overturn the results, she explained.
“I hope that we won’t have accountability just for Donald Trump and if there are others named in these indictments along with him for their behavior, but we will also have accountability for a political party that has just thrown in with all the lies and the divisiveness and the lack of any consciences about what has been done to the country,” she said.
Why It Matters: Trump — who back in 2016 rallied crowds by calling Clinton “Crooked Hillary” and leading “lock her up” chants — has now been indicted four times, and his lineup of court dates continues to pile up ahead of the 2024 election.
The most recent criminal charges facing Trump are related to the 2020 election and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to try Trump and 18 other co-defendants in the case and get the trial completed in six months.
“I make decisions in this office based on the facts in the law,” Willis said. “The law is completely nonpartisan.”
The charges allege that Trump and the co-defendants tried to invalidate President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump faces 13 charges, which include conspiring to engage in first-degree forgery, conspiring to submit a fabricated document and urging a political official to breach their oath.
The former president called the new charges “un-American and wrong” in a statement.
“These activities by Democrat leaders constitute a grave threat to American democracy and are direct attempts to deprive the American people of their rightful choice to cast their vote for President,” the statement also said.
Produced in association with Benzinga
