‘The Greatest Constitutional Crisis Since the 1850s’: Newt Gingrich

Gingrich slammed the Democrat Party for persisting with the Trump investigations, claiming the country is in a political crisis mode not seen in a long time.
‘The Greatest Constitutional Crisis Since the 1850s’: Newt Gingrich
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaks during the America First Agenda Summit in Washington, on July 26, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Naveen Athrappully
8/16/2023
Updated:
8/16/2023
0:00

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) blasted Democrats, accusing them of routinely breaking the law and getting away with it while persecuting the former president who dared to challenge the system.

“I think we are drifting toward the greatest constitutional crisis since the 1850s, and the rise of secession, and the Civil War—I don’t mean that as hyperbole,” he said during an appearance Monday night on Fox News’s “Hannity” program. “If you read Andy McCarthy’s remarkable book, ‘Ball of Collusion,’ which came out in 2019, he makes very clear that it is Barack Obama who corrupts the Justice Department; it is Hillary Clinton who routinely breaks the law and gets away with it; and now we have Joe Biden who has learned.

“He’s learned from Obama that it doesn’t matter what you do—if you’re a liberal Democrat, you will not be prosecuted. He learned from Hillary that a person in high public office can get millions and millions of dollars.”

In the “Ball of Collusion,” author Mr. McCarthy writes that ongoing investigations against former President Donald Trump were really fishing expeditions in search of a crime.

Corrupt political operatives were spying around the Trump campaign hoping to uncover something seedy that could be prosecuted. But things got complicated when he won the presidency in 2016.

This led to the Department of Justice under President Barack Obama creating the FBI-Fusion GPS hidden backchannel shortly before the 2016 election in order to conceal Hillary Clinton’s role in the investigations.

Mr. Gingrich said, “They learned from watching Donald Trump that a true outsider, willing to take on the entire system, could destroy their entire machine.”

Then-President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a meeting in Beijing, on Nov. 17, 2009. (Feng Li/Getty Images)
Then-President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a meeting in Beijing, on Nov. 17, 2009. (Feng Li/Getty Images)

“So what you’re seeing across the country is a desperate, last-ditch effort by a corrupt machine to destroy their most dangerous opponent in a way, which not only breaks the Constitution, [but also] destroys the rule of law, and establishes a moment of bitterness which I think will last for a generation or more,” he said.

Mr. Gingrich criticized the mainstream media for being complicit in the corruption, and warned about the current political climate.

“I think this is going to be a horrendous period, and we just need to understand, the people who want to control America and dictate to the rest of us will break any law, lie about any topic, and manipulate the system any way they can, and that includes a lot of the elite news media.”

Trump’s Georgia Indictment

President Trump faces 13 counts in the Georgia indictment, including conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree; conspiracy to commit filing of false documents; solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer; and violation of the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

If convicted and slapped with a maximum sentence on all 13 counts, President Trump will be looking at up to 76.5 years in prison.

If the three previous indictments in New York, Miami, and Washington, D.C., are also taken into consideration, the former president is facing up to 717.5 years in prison. The indictment in Washington, D.C., can also come with a death penalty.

President Trump and the 18 other defendants have been given until noon on Aug. 25 to surrender themselves for processing in the latest indictment.

“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Mr. Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Mr. Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan and purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states,” according to the charges.

Stealing Elections

Mr. Gingrich had earlier accused Democrats of having a “passion” for stealing elections, and advised Republicans to win by big margins.

During a Fox News show, he was asked whether Republicans were doing enough to ensure free and fair elections in 2024. “Well, I think it’s probably almost impossible under current law to ensure an accurate election,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And I think the only Republican strategy in the long run is to pick issues and win by margins so big that they can’t steal it. If you have a very close election, Democrats have a passion for stealing them.”

President Trump is, by far, the leading contender among GOP 2024 hopefuls. He has constantly called the investigations into him “election interference.”

Former president Donald Trump arrives at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on Aug. 12, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
Former president Donald Trump arrives at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on Aug. 12, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

In an Aug.15 Truth Social post, he said: “All of these Biden administration bogus trials and cases, including the locals, should be brought after the 2024 Presidential Election. What they have done is already Election Interference, but if the trials are held before the Election, then it would be Interference on a scale never seen in our Country before.”

President Trump recently pulled in a massive crowd at the Iowa State Fair.

“Any time they file an indictment, we go way up in the polls,” President Trump said during a Republican Party dinner in Montgomery, Alabama, earlier this month. “We need one more indictment to close out this election. One more indictment, and this election is closed out.”

“Nobody has even a chance,” he added.