Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) underlined the severity of former President Trump’s criminal hush money trial Sunday, saying he believes that Americans will really pay attention to court proceedings, and it could impact their vote.
Trump’s attorneys have downplayed the trial; attorney Will Scharf said Sunday it is merely a “six-week-long media extravaganza.”
Raskin called it a “very serious case,” tying it to the other criminal cases the former president faces regarding attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
“Trump’s people would like to trivialize and diminish the meaning of this trial, but in fact, it’s, perfectly emblematic of the others that are out there,” Raskin said in an MSNBC interview with Jen Psaki.
“They’re all about electoral interference and manipulation. And we’re going to see that in the D.C. case,” he continued. “They tried it with fraud. We’re going to see that in the Georgia case. And here they tried it with payoffs and then cooking the books. Financial manipulation — that’s what it’s about.”
“I think the Trump people are going to be shocked how tuned-in America is to what’s going on here,” he added.
Trump’s criminal hush money trial will start jury selection Monday in Manhattan, where prosecutors claim the former president illegally covered up payments made to hide a previous alleged affair during the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign.
The trial is expected to last around six weeks and marks the first of four criminal cases against the former president.