MSNBC’s Glenn Kirschner Says Trump Could Have ‘Homicide Liability’ Over Coronavirus Deaths
MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner told SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah President Donald Trump’s conduct during the coronavirus pandemic could lead to a criminal manslaughter charge.
On Thursday’s edition of The Dean Obeidallah Show, the host talked with Kirschner about the steady stream of misinformation that Trump has promoted during the crisis.
“Are there any times the words of a president in misleading people could get to the point of potentially manslaughter? Or is that really a bridge too far?” Obeidallah asked Kirschner.
“Yes. And here’s how,” Kirschner said, then launched into a lengthy argument in favor of Trump’s “homicide liability” during the pandemic:
First of all, when you are trying a case, Dean, you were a trial lawyer, you know this, you don’t look at any one piece of evidence in isolation. You put it together the way you put together the pieces of a puzzle. So no one Donald Trump statement or act or failure to act gives rise to homicide liability.
However, in aggregate, when you put it all together, he easily satisfies the three elements of either involuntary manslaughter or negligent homicide, depending on what jurisdiction you’re in. Because those three elements are simply acting in a grossly negative way, or having a duty to act, which he does as president, and failing to act in a grossly negligent way. We’ve seen that.
The second element is that your action or failure to act is likely to produce death or serious bodily injury. Check.
And the third is that your action or failure to act caused the death of others. Causing the death means your conduct was a substantial factor in bringing about the death.
There was a great interview with a woman in New York who said my father, I wish I could remember his name, he was a bar owner in New York for decades and decades, and he was a devoted Donald Trump fan. He heard Donald Trump saying ‘This is going to go away, it’s a hoax, there’s nothing to it, I’m not wearing a mask, don’t worry about it.’
He went out and lived his life expressly by telling his family ‘The president has said this is a hoax and I have nothing to worry about so I will live my life accordingly. I will not take the precautions that the liberals think I should take.’
And he went out and caught the coronavirus and has died. If that’s not a case of manslaughter liability or negligent homicide, I don’t know what is.
Kirschner was apparently referring to the late Joe Joyce, whose death was the subject of a New York Times article detailing his skepticism about the virus prior to contracting and dying from the disease.
Watch the clip above, via SiriusXM.
