MSNBC host Chris Hayes has long said he is worried that Donald Trump will ride out the clock regarding any accountability for his role in the Jan. 6 attack. Unsurprisingly, now that an indictment in the federal investigation into that event has finally been handed down, Hayes says he feels ‘gratified’ by the news.
“Well, my first reaction, which is just a personal one,” Hayes said during the network’s primetime coverage of the indictment, “is ‘Right, I’m not crazy.’ If this wasn’t a crime, nothing is a crime.”
Federal Special Counsel Jack Smith announced the third indictment, and second on federal charges against Trump earlier Tuesday, which include conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
The enormity of these charges was not lost on Hayes, who described the Jan. 6 attack as part of a political continuum linking back to the Civil War, and called it “the gravest political crime since secession.”
“We watched him do it on television. We sat at this desk a year ago at the January 6 committee. We knew what he was doing. If that is not a crime, then nothing is a crime,” Hayes said.
After a nod and affirmation from Rachel Maddow, Hayes continued, “Yes, of course, this was corrupt. Of course, this was a fraud. Of course, it was a conspiracy to defraud the US, we all saw him engage in the conspiracy to defraud the US.”
“With Donald Trump, lots of things are unprecedented,” Hayes said at one point. “The first time he was indicted was unprecedented, and the second time he was indicted it was unprecedented because a federal indictment had never come down.”
Hayes added, “This is in the canon of American events, Jan. 6 and its aftermath. And the reason is that for 159 years after the cannons fired on Fort Sumter, there is an unbroken chain of peaceful transfer of power. And not only that, the core story of the American experiment is a fight within itself to be true to the radical promise of democracy.”
For Hayes, the indictment of Trump in connection to the events of Jan. 6 is “why Lincoln says at the battlefield of Gettysburg that the question before the nation is whether a nation of, by, and for the people can long endure. It is a test of whether the thing can last.”
Ultimately, Hayes feels “gratified” by the indictment, especially as it pertains to the purpose of law in the first place.
Watch the entire clip from “All In with Chris Hayes” in the video above.