Chris Hayes And Sherilynn Ifill Torch Trump’s ‘Intensely Racist Conspiracy’ — That’s Being Charged Under Klan Law

MSNBC host Chris Hayes and civil rights attorney Sherilynn Ifill tore into the “intensely racist conspiracy” ex-President Donald Trump allegedly perpetrated, which is being charged under an anti-KKK statute.

All eyes remain on the big news of the day from Thursday — the arrest and arraignment of ex-President Donald Trump after being indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury for his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election before and on January 6, 2021.  Trump faces charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

On Thursday night’s edition of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, Hayes and Ifill talked about that last charge — which is being charged under a set of laws passed in 1870 to prosecute the Klan — and the “intensely racist” conspiracy behind the charge:

CHRIS HAYES: Let’s talk about that fourth charge and what it means in its historical context and also today in terms of how intensely racially specific and racist the story Donald Trump told and the conspiracy he undertook. Allegedly.

SHERRILYN IFILL: It’s huge, Chris. And I’m so thrilled that it was included in Jack Smith’s indictment. You may recall that at the time that I was leading LDF in 2020, we filed a KKK act suit on the civil side because we saw the targeting in Detroit and Atlanta and other places. And that was before we had all the information about the phone calls and about, you know, that came out of the January 6 Commission. So it’s critical that Jack Smith has done this because there was targeting. That, the whole point of this scheme was to throw out votes in places where Donald Trump knew he didn’t get a lot of votes, and in particular to target places where he could carry a narrative about fraud more easily. And you see it with Shaye Moss and Ruby Moss and the way in which Rudy Giuliani talked about them and the way Trump talked about them as “hustlers.” Right? You could only do that because they were Black women.

And so this idea of you hear Trump kept saying, “Detroit is so corrupt. It always has been. It has been for many years.”.

Everything he said reinforced that trope. And then you heard it today when he left the courthouse and he spoke very briefly, and suddenly he said Washington, D.C. and he was only speaking for 20 seconds, but he had to talk about what he claims he saw on his ride to the courthouse. “A crumbling city, graffiti everywhere.”.

This is the same narrative. And what really frightens me about it, Chris, is that the Republican Party is taking it up as well when they say that Trump can’t get a fair trial in Washington, D.C.. Why are they saying that? Why do they think he can’t get a fair trial? Because this is a city where they they feel and they know that many of the jurors are likely to be Black. And so that they are taking up. And it’s important for us to see that this is part of that same narrative and that same targeting that Trump was doing, and it’s why he’s able to be successful.

Watch above via MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes.

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