Former federal prosecutor John Flannery criticized President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening during an interview with MSNBC’s Ari Melber, accusing the president of acting as if he is above the law. Flannery’s remarks came in response to Trump’s controversial pardons of individuals convicted of sedition and his push to end birthright citizenship through executive order.
Melber began the discussion by asking Flannery, “Your thoughts on what we just saw there and these pardons of people convicted of sedition against the United States?” Flannery responded by highlighting the contradiction between Trump’s claimed support for the Constitution and his actions.
“Here you have a president who claims that he’s going to enforce the Constitution, and he has this amazing conflict himself by basically rewarding all those who made possible the insurrectionists to try to overturn the election,” Flannery said. “Now he rewards them for what they did, notwithstanding the fact that they hurt the police.”
Flannery also criticized Trump’s impact on law enforcement morale. “Those who were intimately involved with suffering that violence… have to think, ‘He asked us to defend him and to keep him whole, and when the shoe is on the other foot and we need that, he doesn’t punish them.’ So what does that say for the respect for police nationwide? What does that say for those who supported him in this election?” he asked.
Turning to Trump’s executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship, Flannery argued that the president is overstepping constitutional bounds. “Trump believes he has the power to rewrite the Constitution,” Flannery said. “We’re not going to delay. We’re not going to make the mistake that [former Attorney General Merrick] Garland made and sit on our hands. We’re going to fight from the beginning for the rights that are ours.”
Flannery explained that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship for those born in the United States, adding that Trump’s actions also undermine the 10th Amendment, which reserves powers not delegated to the federal government to the states. “Trump, of course, doesn’t care anything about that because he is, in his mind apparently, within the status of the divine right of kings. Putting his hand on a Bible is beneath him.”
Flannery concluded by framing Trump’s administration as fundamentally un-American. “This is something that our country, from George III to now, has decried as not who we are,” he said. “This man is alien to us. This is an absurd administration. And we have to fight it from the beginning.”