Rep. Adam Schiff warned that Donald Trump is “inciting violence” when he said that the American public will reach a “breaking point” if he is put on house arrest or sentenced to prison.
“I’m not sure the public would stand for it,” Trump said during a Fox News interview that aired Sunday. “I think it’d be tough for the public to take. At a certain point, there’s a breaking point.”
Trump was found guilty on 34 counts last week in New York for falsifying business records. His sentencing is scheduled for July 11.
“In terms of Donald Trump’s comments about whether the public reaches a breaking point if he is sentenced to jail time, this is clearly Donald Trump once again inciting violence, potential violence, when he is sentenced,” Schiff said Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union.
“We see this pattern over and over again, where Donald Trump communicates with his base supporters, making it pretty clear what he wants to see, and then his enablers try to explain it away,” Schiff, who is running for a Senate seat in California, told host Kasie Hunt. “His base listens to him… And this is another dangerous appeal to violence.”
When Hunt asked Schiff about the sentence prosecutors should seek for Trump, the congressman said that Trump’s sentence should be in line with other similar cases. “I think what the prosecutors should do, and, for that matter, what the judge should do is look at, what are the sentences given out in New York for like felons, people that have committed felonies of that nature that Donald Trump committed? They should recommend a sentence no greater or no less than any other citizen would get for committing those kinds of crimes.”
Schiff continued, pointing out that Trump has not accepted responsibility or showed remorse: “Now, I do think the judge should consider, as any judge would against any defendant, has the defendant accepted responsibility? Have they shown remorse? Are they willing to make restitution? In this case, as you can see from the moment he stepped out of that courthouse, Donald Trump shows no acceptance of responsibility, and that ought to be weighed against him, as the judge would against any American who’s convicted on a multiple counts and takes no responsibility.”
He added that Judge Juan Merchan should consider Trump’s threat of a public “breaking point” when sentencing him.
“This is essentially his threat — that, if he gets jail time, that he’s going to encourage his supporters to rise up,” Schiff said. “And we saw the very deadly results of that on January 6. So I don’t think the public is going to respond to that call. I hope we learned something from the awful experience of January 6.”
“It’s very clear what Donald Trump is suggesting here,” Schiff concluded. “This is something… that the judge needs to take into consideration also, not to be intimidated by that threat, but as of further evidence this defendant not only doesn’t accept responsibility, but is willing to endanger people.”
