'Most dangerous defendant': Ex-federal prosecutor calls for Trump to be jailed pre-trial

29 March 2024

An experienced former Department of Justice prosecutor is now calling for former President Donald Trump to be remanded to jail ahead of his trial in the wake of his constant attacks on judges, prosecutors and their families.

During a Friday segment on MSNBC, former assistant US Attorney Glenn Kirschner recalled how in his 30-year career, he was "obliged" to file a motion for pre-trial detention if he thought a defendant presented a threat to the community, or even just one single person. He lamented that Trump has so far not been held to that standard by any of the prosecutors trying him, and referred to the 45th president of the United States as the "single most dangerous defendant who's on pre-trial release in the United States of America."

"He's a danger to the community, he's a danger to the witnesses, he's a danger to the jurors, he's a danger to the judges and their staff, he's a danger to the prosecutors and their staffs, he's a danger to the family members of all of those groups," Kirschner said.

"Thus far, the institutions of government, and the good people that populate those institutions, have been willing to sacrifice the safety of all of those people. Indeed, they've been willing to bet the future of our democracy on it rather than hold Donald Trump accountable as the law provides in the pre-trial detention arena," he continued. "That is the solution to the problem."

Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing Trump's upcoming hush money trial in Manhattan, recently hit Trump with a gag order preventing him from attacking witnesses, like his former lawyer and "fixer" Michael Cohen or adult film star Stormy Daniels. However, Merchan's order did not prohibit the former president from attacking him or his family, which Trump has done repeatedly since the gag order was handed down.

Kirschner told MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace that the he believed the lack of accountability for the ex-president is due to the implications of a judge or prosecutor being the first to take such action against a former head of state. He said that because Trump is facing four upcoming criminal trials in three separate jurisdictions, everyone who could hold him accountable for his actions is waiting on someone else to take the heat for going first.

"Donald Trump has almost too many criminal cases running at the same time and there four judges and four teams of prosecutors saying, 'well, maybe one of the other judges or the other prosecutors will apply the law of pre-trial detention as it was designed to be applied,' and thus far, nobody has applied it," he added.

Earlier this week, Trump made several posts on his Truth Social account — which has seven million followers — about Judge Merchan and his daughter. He even mentioning her by name in a post on Thursday. Those attacks harken back to Trump's civil fraud trial, in which he repeatedly assailed Judge Arthur Engoron and his wife, along with his law clerk, Allison Greenfield. Both Engoron and Greenfield said they were the target of "credible" threats, which included anti-Semitic slurs.

The former president's hush money trial is slated to begin on April 15, and is projected to take up to six weeks, if not longer. His three other trials have yet to be scheduled, and because of the Supreme Court agreeing to consider his absolute broad presidential immunity argument, Trump may not have a verdict in any of his three other trials before Election Day.

Watch Kirschner's segment below, or by clicking this link.

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