'A criminal enterprise': MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace explains how Trump could be taken down like a mob boss

Matthew Chapman
05 March 2019

On Tuesday night's edition of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Nicolle Wallace laid down a bold theory of President Donald Trump's legal situation: rather than investigating him and his allies as individuals, she said, it is possible that the whole group, along with Trump's own family business, is being investigated as a single criminal scheme.

"A legal theory that has long been whispered about by legal experts and veteran prosecutors has spilled out into the open in the wake of Michael Cohen's explosive testimony," said Wallace, "the possibility that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization are being investigated as a criminal enterprise."

"The undercurrents have been there all along, with federal law enforcement officials and lawmakers comparing Donald Trump's conduct to that of a mob boss," Wallace continued. As examples, she showed clips of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former FBI Director James Comey all making that exact comparison.

"And in a piece out in The New York Times today, Garrett Graff describes how pursuing Trump World as a mob operation could take down Trump and his entire empire," she said, citing a passage from the article that suggested a "corrupt enterprise" indictment of the Trump Organization could sidestep the whole issue of whether a sitting president can be indicted.

"And on the congressional front today, [House Intelligence Committee chairman] Adam Schiff announcing that he has hired a veteran Russian mob prosecutor — do you see a theme emerging, folks? — Daniel Goldman, to run the House Intel investigation into the president," said Wallace.

"It's in the context of this devastating legal peril that the president appears to be spiraling into meltdown mode, tweeting 'PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!' in his outside voice ... and publicly attacking the numerous investigations into his conduct that are now encircling the White House, his family, his businesses, and his closest allies," Wallace concluded.

Watch below: