Eric Holder, who served as attorney general under President Barack Obama, on Sunday said it would be “simply absurd” for Donald Trump to serve as president again if he is found guilty of mishandling classified documents.
The former president, who is currently the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, was indicted on 37 counts over keeping top secret documents after he left the White House in January 2021 and allegedly obstructing government efforts to recover them.
Despite the damning charges, which include willful retention of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice, Trump has continued to claim he’s innocent and appears determined to stay in the 2024 presidential contest.
“The notion that you could have a trial, defend it, be convicted, somehow win the election, be sworn in as a president, or whenever it happens, that seems inconsistent with our notion of fairness, of the rule of law,” Holder said on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”
Holder added that he would hope that an impeachment proceeding would be triggered if Trump were to be found guilty while in office, and that he would ultimately be removed from the role.
“The notion that a convicted felon … would serve as president of the United States is absurd, is simply absurd,” Holder said.
But Trump has said he has no intention of stepping aside.
“I’ll never leave,” Trump told Politico Saturday. “Look, if I would have left, I would have left prior to the original race in 2016. That was a rough one. In theory that was not doable.”
Holder also expressed concern about Aileen Cannon, the judge who will preside over the case, saying she doesn’t have the “legal acumen” to oversee a case of this importance.
Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020, was criticized over her decision to grant the former president’s request for a special master to review the documents the FBI obtained during a search of Mar-a-Lago in August. Her ruling was overturned by a federal appeals court.
“I would hope that she would see within herself, or that somehow, some way, she is convinced that she should get off the case and some other judge should handle this matter,” Holder said. “I don’t have confidence in her abilities to be fair, or to be seen as fair.”
He added that Cannon as a presiding judge would have the power to affect the case in a number of ways.
“But the one that concerns me the most is the notion of delay, and pushing this case, you know, past the general election, certainly well into the primary season, just by the way in which she schedules things,” Holder added.
