'A formulaic game': former officials say Trump's attacks threaten rule of law

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

72% : For good measure, Trump complimented two other foreign authoritarian leaders, calling Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, "highly respected" and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un "very nice".
62% : Trump would love a world where Vladimir Putin would decide the integrity of elections and prosecutions.
47% : "Naftali suggested: "Trump announced his second re-election bid much earlier than is traditional for major candidates.
46% : "Claiming the federal criminal cases or the Georgia Rico action are election interference, and railing constantly about the character of the prosecutors, judges and others, is just a formulaic game to Trump," Ty Cobb, a White House counsel during the Trump years and a former DoJ official, said.
46% : "Trump feels entirely emboldened by his supporters.
45% : "Even Vladimir Putin ... says that Biden's - and this is a quote - 'politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy'," Trump told a campaign rally in Durham, New Hampshire.
43% : "So it makes sense that Trump would try to elevate him as a kind of moral arbiter.
43% : "Trump has long been looking for and finding ways to protect himself whenever he crosses legal lines.
39% : It's important for Trump to continue to attack our essential legal institutions.
36% : That pledge fits with Trump painting himself a victim of a vendetta by "deep state" forces at the justice department, the FBI and other agencies Trump and his allies want to rein in while expanding his executive authority, if he's the Republican nominee and wins the presidency again.
36% : "Of course, it's true that Trump is the undisputed master of election interference, so he certainly knows the field," Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, a leading Trump critic in the House, said.
33% : "The Trump team is looking to cobble together a defense for the indefensible," said Timothy Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.
30% : "Yet Trump keeps escalating his high-voltage rhetoric and revealing his authoritarian tendencies.
29% : Ex-president has made increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian broadsides against prosecutors pursuing himAs Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts with four trials slated for 2024, including two tied to his drives to overturn his 2020 election loss, his attacks on prosecutors are increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian in style and threaten the rule of law, say former justice department officials.
29% : "It's hard to think of a greater case of election interference than what Trump did in 2020 and 2021.
28% : Richman stressed that "I wouldn't assume Trump is trying to mimic other authoritarians.
24% : "Trump has a habit of picking up allegations made against him and, like a kid in the playground, accusing the critics of doing the same thing", such as crying "electoral interference", said the Columbia law professor and former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman.
23% : In November Trump sparked fire for slamming his opponents on the left as "vermin", a term that echoed Adolf Hitler's language, and the ex-president has more than once pledged in authoritarian style to appoint a special prosecutor to "go after" Biden and his family.
20% : "The reality is that Trump has clearly done a series of illegal things and the system is holding him to account for things that he's done," said the former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer, who served during the George HW Bush administration.
18% : The former US president's vitriolic attacks on a special counsel and two state prosecutors as well as some judges claim in part that the charges against Trump amount to "election interference" since he's seeking the presidency again, and that "presidential immunity" protects Trump for his multiple actions to subvert Joe Biden's 2020 victory.
18% : Trump's chief goal in attacking Smith, whom he's labelled a "deranged lunatic", and other prosecutors and judges is to delay his trials well into 2024, or until after the election, when Trump could pardon himself if he wins, experts say.
14% : Trump's constitutional objections to the trial-related issues are all frivolous including his claim of presidential immunity and double jeopardy."Cobb added that Trump's "everyone is bad but me and I am the victim" rants, lies and frivolous imperious motions and appeals are just his "authoritarianism in service of his narcissism".Other ex-officials offer equally harsh assessments of Trump's defenses.
13% : Right before Christmas, Trump's lawyers asked an appeals court in Washington to throw out Smith's four-count subversion indictment, arguing that his actions occurred while he was in office and merited presidential immunity, and Trump in a Truth Social post on Christmas Eve blasted Smith for "election interference".
10% : Similarly, Trump has targeted the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, who has brought a racketeering case in Georgia against Trump and 18 others for trying to overturn Biden's win there, branding her a "rabid partisan".
7% : Trump even bragged that Russian president Vladimir Putin in December echoed Trump's charges of political persecution and election interference to bolster his claims.

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