Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) recently suggested that Americans should be “forcefully rising up” against President Donald Trump’s administration after the U.S. Justice Department announced an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James for charges of alleged bank fraud and false statements to a financial institution.
During an interview with liberal activist and MSNBC host Al Sharpton on “PoliticsNation,” Schumer was asked by Sharpton about comments he made in response to a federal grand jury indictment of James last week following an investigation into alleged mortgage fraud. “You said, ‘This is what tyranny looks like.’ Can you explain that?” Sharpton asked the Senate minority leader.
“Yes, they have made the Justice Department, which, under every other president, Democrat or Republican, pursued the law and went after people who broke the law. They have made it into Trump’s personal attack dog. That is what dictatorships do,” Schumer told Sharpton. “That’s what tyranny is all about.”
Schumer claimed that Trump is “trying to get back” at the New York attorney general after she had pursued a “legitimate case” against the president over allegations of business fraud and won the case against Trump last year.
The Democrat senator claimed the case against James is “so weak” that the first prosecutor appointed by Trump was fired after determining that there was “not a case here.” Schumer added that a new prosecutor was appointed and suggested that the prosecutor will now do anything Trump wants.
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“I talked to Tish James a half hour after the indictment came through. She is strong, she is tough, she is resolute, and she is confident, as am I, that these charges will be rejected because they have no basis, no basis in law or in fact,” Schumer said. “So I respect her. She’s my friend, and it’s, you know, they’re doing something vicious to her.”
Schumer later told Sharpton that it was “absolutely clear” that the Trump administration “had no case” against the New York attorney general.
“It is just such a hallmark of tyrannical, autocratic dictatorship societies that they use the prosecutorial department as a political weapon. It is a disgrace,” Schumer added. “And every American, I don’t care if you’re Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, moderate, people should be forcefully rising up against this, speaking out against it, and making it clear how inimical this is to what our democracy has been for, stood for, for, you know, more than two centuries.”
