Michael Steele, a former chair of the Republican National Committee, on Thursday argued there is only one real “unprecedented” thing about Donald Trump’s classified documents case. And it isn’t the Espionage Act prosecution of the former president for allegedly mishandling the materials.
Steele agreed with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, who said prosecutors had trodden extremely carefully and given Trump “a million chances” to avoid indictment by handing back the documents taken from the White House.
Trump and his allies, though, have called his arrest and charging unprecedented.
“The problem … is that we always put the burden of what’s unprecedented on those who are actually required to do their job,” Steele said.
“It’s not unprecedented that the FBI or the Department of Justice or any law enforcement agent or any attorney general or anybody else around the country in this space would respond the way they would respond if it wasn’t a president, right?” he asked.
“You take secret documents, guess who’s going to knock on your door, right?” Steele continued. “There’s not going to be gnashing of teeth and writing memos inside of any agency to pick your behind up and bring you in, not just for questioning, but for booking and processing, right?”
In Trump’s case, “the unprecedented part is a president did it,” he continued.
“It is the action of the individual that is unprecedented,” Steele added. “The process in responding to that action is what is the rule of law. It is what should have happened.”
