In a recent interview with journalist Brian Tyler Cohen, longtime voting rights and democracy-focused lawyer Marc Elias argued that Donald Trump needs to be held to the same judicial standards as Americans in general, something that Elias contended is not happening. He broadly characterized this push as concluding with Trump in detention over some of what he’s been saying publicly while facing four criminal cases and other legal matters like Letitia James’ sweeping fraud case in New York.
“If Donald Trump were a Black 20-year-old who was picked up by the police on some minor, petty offense, and he tweeted one-one hundredth of what Donald Trump tweets — if he said in public one word about a law clerk or about judicial staff, he’d be thrown in prison,” Elias insisted. “We are not wrestling with the reality of just what special treatment Donald Trump is getting. […] It is time for the federal judiciary and the state judiciary to take this head-on and stop it.”
Trump remains embroiled in two disputes related to the same number of proposed gag orders, one in the fraud case and the other in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal case over Trump’s post-2020 election schemes. In the latter dispute, which is before a federal appeals court, prosecutors pointed judges to attestations in the first matter — meaning the fraud case — tying Trump’s commentary to threats and harassment faced by that court. Citing supposed concerns from the First Amendment, Trump and his team have consistently argued for a complete rejection of the order, as proposed.
Watch Elias’ interview below:
