Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) staked out his territory as a liberal in the aftermath of former President Donald Trump‘s conviction on 34 felony counts in New York. Raskin sought to illustrate the difference between the attitudes of those who share his outlook and conservatives like Trump, who he said “called for the death penalty against some innocent young men and who want to lock everybody up, including Hillary Clinton.”
(Raskin refers in the first instance to Trump’s provocative full page advertisements imploring New York to instate the death penalty circa 1989 after the so-called Central Park Five were convicted in a rape case, a conviction later overturned on evidence that the five young men of color had been misidentified.)
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper (below), in which Cooper asks Raskin whether the Congressman thinks Trump should “go to jail,” Raskin replied: “To me, it’s irrelevant. The major thing is that the rule of law work.”
Cooper: Do you think he should go to jail?
Raskin: I’m a liberal person. I don’t take joy in people being sent to jail. It’s people like Donald Trump who called for the death penalty against some innocent young men and who want to lock everybody up, including Hillary Clinton. pic.twitter.com/ezTBo68211
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 31, 2024
Raskin continued, saying: “You know I’m a liberal person, I don’t take joy in people going to jail and going through that kind of suffering.” That’s “not the way I feel, as a liberal,” Raskin said, “and I don’t want to inflict any suffering on anybody. But I do want to see that the rule of law works and is vindicated against these incessant outrageous attacks on the rule of law.”
For incessant attacks on the rule of law, nearly any MAGA Senator or House member’s X account will serve in the wake of the Trump guilty verdict, even though it was arrived at through due process and a jury decision.
Below is the lawyer and Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) on Fox News, in a post shared by Trump on his on Truth Social account.