Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” called for criminal accountability for President Donald Trump’s incitement of the riot on Capitol Hill last week.
Partial transcript as follows:
BRENNAN: You’re close to the president-elect who tweeted yesterday, “Our president is not above the law. Justice serves the people. It doesn’t protect the powerful.” What does that supposed to mean? Does he support potentially prosecuting President Trump?
COONS: President-elect Biden is focused on the enormous challenges that will face him when he becomes president 10 days from now. It is up to Congress in the next 10 days, to work to ensure the safety and security of our country, to press successfully, hopefully, for President Trump to resign, or for Vice President Pence to enact what he can do under the 25th Amendment. President Trump, by his actions over the last two months since the election, has lost the right to be president and by the actions this past Wednesday and his failure to take any responsibility or show any remorse for it of significance. I think he doesn’t deserve to be president anymore.
BRENNAN: Well, he won’t be in 10 days, regardless of what happens. Should he be prosecuted after he leaves office? You sit on Senate Judiciary. Do you think that would be appropriate?
COONS: I think there needs to be accountability for his actions. Whether that comes through the New York attorney general or the US Department of Justice we’ll have to leave for now. But many of my Republican colleagues are now calling for healing and for us to come together. I’ll tell you that there can only be reconciliation with repentance. And I think the single most important thing that Republicans in Congress who helped facilitate this widespread conspiracy theory that somehow the election was stolen- and the most important thing that President Trump can do in these remaining 10 days is to stop those lies and to persuade their followers and supporters that President-elect Biden is the duly elected president of the United States. That’s what Mike Pence certified on Wednesday night once we returned to the Capitol. That’s what Senators Blunt and Klobuchar certified. That’s an important next step if we are, in fact, going to have any healing.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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