Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner told
Newsweek on Saturday that if former President
Donald Trump is not treated like any other defendant in his criminal cases, it could be the "downfall" of the United States.
Trump, frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces a total of 91 felony charges in four separate criminal cases, two of which are federal ones. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges maintaining his innocence, accusing prosecutors of a political "witch hunt" against him.
Kirschner, a staunch Trump critic who is also legal analyst for
MSNBC, said that there has been an imbalance in how the former president has been treated compared to others in the criminal justice system.
"I think our inability to sort of hold accountable, what I call ruling class criminals, high government officials who obviously broke the law, and hold them accountable the way we would hold anybody else accountable," Kirschner said via phone to
Newsweek. "We just, we can't do it. We either can't or won't do it. And that will be our downfall. The rule of law will be our downfall."