Donald Trump has made the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol a cornerstone of his re-election bid, making his authoritarian ambitions harder to ignore.
The former president hailed his imprisoned supporters who violently stormed the Capitol as "unbelievable patriots" and pledged to pardon them on his first day in office if re-elected, and those lawless threats should send a chill through anyone who values democracy and the rule of law, according to one expert who spoke to the Associated Press.
“Listen to Trump," said Jason Stanley, a philosophy professor at Yale.
Trump has been indicted in federal court on four felony counts related to his effort to remain in office despite his 2020 election loss, which culminated in the Capitol siege, but a trial remains on hold – and is possibly in jeopardy – as the U.S. Supreme Court he helped to shape considers whether he should be broadly immune to prosecution as a former president.
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“When a coup against the democratic regime happens and it’s not punished," Stanley said, "that is a very strong indicator of the end of the rule of law and the victory of that authoritarian movement."
The former president faces 91 felony counts in four jurisdictions, but none of those cases has gone to trial and the only one that has been scheduled was put on hold for a month after federal prosecutors in New York were slow to deliver evidence to Manhattan prosecutors, and the remaining cases may not be tried until after the election – if at all.
The House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection found that Trump had criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn his election loss and failed to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol, and more than 1,200 of them have been charged in the riot, including militant Oath Keepers and Proud Boys and several of Trump's attorneys.
But the former president's national press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the Department of Justice of “targeting Americans for peacefully protesting on January 6th" and reiterated Trump's pledge to pardon the rioters.
“President Trump will restore justice for all Americas who have been unfairly treated,” Leavitt said.
Those promises amount to threats to constitutional order, according to Stanley, and could pave the way to more violence regardless of whether or not Trump loses.
“Americans have a hard time understanding that what happens in most of the world can happen here, too," Stanley said.