‘It’s Dangerous’: George Conway Accuses Trump of Blackmailing Dept. of Justice With Threats of Violence if He’s Indicted

George Conway accused former President Donald Trump of playing a dangerous game of blackmail by ostensibly threatening violence to deter prosecutors currently investigating him over several outstanding legal cases.

The Washington Post published an op-ed from Conway late Tuesday evening titled “Trump is out for vengeance — and to protect himself from prosecution,” in which he argues the former president openly suggests violent civil disobedience if he is prosecuted.

Conway writes:

A big reason Trump announced his run is he fears criminal prosecution. He’s a desperate man, a threatened and rabid animal, who could face multiple indictments (the stolen classified documents, Georgia) over the next year.

He thinks running for president, and the specter of violence from his fringiest supporters, will protect him from the prosecutors. If he’s indicted, he promises “problems in this country the likes of which perhaps we’ve never seen before.” And he’ll make good on that promise: As Sen. Mitch McConnell said last year, Trump was “determined” to “torch our institutions on the way out” in January 2021, merely because he lost an election.

So just imagine what Trump would do to stay out of jail.

Conway appeared on Morning Joe Wednesday morning to discuss his column, and Trump announced a 2024 bid for the White House and threw off a few headline options for Mediaite writers.

“George Conway: Republican Party’s Problem is ‘Fight Trump'” or ‘Let Him Self-Destruct’ was one option. Another? “George Conway: Trump Will ‘Burn the House Down’ Before Letting Any Other Republican Get the Nomination”

But it was Willie Geist asking about Conway’s column that won the day.

“George, you write in the piece under investigation part of this, he thinks, to protect himself from prosecution: a couple of federal probes, Fulton county Georgia probe, all the stuff going on in New York on a civil and criminal level.” Geist opened. “A lot swirling around him in which he could be directly implicated. For people, to make clear from your legal perspective, does this protect him in any way from any of that?”

“Absolutely not,” Conway replied. “It’s basically kind of blackmail. It’s a threat. It’s a threat of violence trying to deter prosecutors by threatening, implying civil disorder.”

“If something like that happens, he’d say, ‘oh, these are the things that happen when bad people do bad things to me.’And he wants that to happen. And that’s why in part, he’s running, and — it’s dangerous.”

Read Conway’s thoughtful column here, and watch above via MSNBC