Saturday on MSNBC’s “AM Joy,” Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg argued that not only are those associated with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign worthy of scrutiny over possible collusion with the Russians to alter the outcome of the presidential election but the “entire Republican leadership” was as well.
Rosenberg named current White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer, who worked for the Republican National Committee during the 2016 election, along with House Speaker Paul Ryan, as being individuals part of this alleged conspiracy.
Rosenberg said Priebus, Spicer and Ryan were “part of the crime” and could be prosecuted and go to jail for “aiding and abetting.”
“Well, I think it’s really important to recognize what’s different from the ’90s and now is that the entire Republican leadership is complicit in what happened in the hack in 2016, right?” he said. “You had the RNC, Reince Priebus and Sean Spicer sending out emails every day promoting Russian disinformation they knew was from Russia and aided and abetted the campaign. My own view is Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus got their jobs in the White House because they were so instrumental in helping make the Russian campaign a success. The same is true with Paul Ryan and the House Republicans. They used the materials in House race after House race after House race.”
“So, all of these Republican leaders were complicit in the actual action of the Russian government in 2016. And so, they’re defending their president because they were part of the crime, and this is why the scandal is so wide-reaching and why if you look at Bob Bauer’s great piece about the concept of aiding and abetting, it is clear that Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Paul Ryan, others who were part of the RCCC are all liable for the aiding and abetting statute and could be prosecuted and go to jail. So, I think part of the reason there is such a wide-held defense is that the entire Republican Party was in on the crime in 2016, and they’re defending themselves.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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