NBC/MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner has grave concerns when it comes to Donald Trump’s continued freedom ahead of the four trials the former president faces. While speaking on SiriusXM’s “The Dean Obeidallah Show” on Friday, Kirschner insisted, “I hope at some point the judges realize that Donald Trump is a danger to the community and he should be detained pending trial, because that will begin to neutralize the threat.”
Kirschner also said that Trump’s “followers are so rabid at times and so detached from reality” and “I’m sorry, this is a cult.”
Trump and his followers have made repeated threats against both Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis since they each filed indictments against him this summer. A number of political analysts have noted the worrying nature of his tirades against the two, and former Trump ally Michael Cohen called his threats against Smith “very dangerous” in July.
Host Obeidallah asked Kirschner if the risk posed by Trump to those who are prosecuting him is larger than any he might have encountered in past cases. Kirschner replied in the affirmative, explaining that he has experience trying RICO cases in “that very courthouse” in Washington D.C., and that those cases often had serious consequences.
Kirschner said, “They killed their competitors. They killed witnesses. They killed members of their own crew when they tried to leave the crew, because nobody gets out alive, because then you run the risk of that person flipping and snitching.”
As a result, he continued, the cases often had anonymous juries and were tried in courtrooms with bulletproof glass partitions. Even with those security measures, some jurors had to be dismissed because their identities were leaked and they received serious threats — and Kirschner is worried Trump and his followers pose at least as equally disturbing a threat.
“I am concerned that the judges have not yet stepped up to address the danger,” he concluded, “the ongoing danger, the demonstrated danger of Donald Trump to witnesses, to jurors, to prosecutors, to judges and to their families.”
Watch the interview with Glenn Kirschner and Dean Obeidallah above.
