Fox News Anchor Defends Trump: ‘Hatching Schemes to Stay in Office is Not a Crime’

Fox News anchor Julie Banderas offered a curious defense of former President Donald Trump over his latest indictment, straight up declaring “hatching schemes to stay in office is not a crime.”

Guest hosting The Faulkner Focus on Monday, Banderas spoke with Tom Dupree about Trump’s demand that his trial, on charges he illegally sought to overturn an election he lost, be moved out of Washington D.C. As Dupree explained the process of selecting an impartial jury for the trial, Banderas outright denounced the case as politically-tainted, claiming it was “impossible” to try it impartially:

Politics written all over it, and attorneys to represent the law, not politics, okay? Judges, same. Judges are the only ones able to recuse themselves, okay? So it’s up to a judge to recuse himself if they have it in for one of the future cases, there is no way they’re gonna recuse themselves. So obviously, the system is a little bit broken, I would have to say.

Let’s move over to Fulton County, Georgia, because in that district, they are potentially gonna be coming forth with a fourth indictment. The attorney, Fani Willis, is probing whether Trump committed crimes and trying to overturn the election results in Georgia, committing crimes.

I want to talk about Trump’s alleged crimes for a second. He has not been indicted with incitement, we know that, right? So it’s not a crime to tell lies. Being a narcissist isn’t a crime. Hatching schemes to stay in office is not a crime. Claiming you won an election you know you lost is not a crime.

Even if we completely ignore Trump’s relentless promotion of the lie that the election was stolen from him, the comments from Banderas ignore the reality that conspiring to stay in a political office despite knowing you lost the election for that office could, in fact, constitute a crime. Special Counsel Jack Smith laid out that alleged scheme in the very detailed 45-page indictment of Trump.

While Trump’s media allies, including on Fox News, have dismissed the indictment as representing a crackdown on free speech, many legal experts have explained that Trump’s legal vulnerability lies in the actions he allegedly took to advance a fraudulent conspiracy with the goal of retaining the presidency despite election challenges finding no evidence of mass fraud.

Watch above via Fox News.

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