Andrew Weissmann

Well, one of the things that was fascinating for me was looking at Bolsonaro, who was the then president of Brazil, and the remarkable, remarkable similarities between

His political career and the things that he has said and done, comparing that to our current president.

And this is a man who ultimately was criminally prosecuted for engaging in an insurrection case.

After he lost the election.

But to your question, before he was criminally prosecuted and convicted of that, he had been accused of making false claims about there being fraud in the election where he claimed that he had won when he hadn't.

And that was something that after due process and a trial where he, you know, like what happened in the United States, he was allowed to present evidence and make arguments, etc.

The court concluded that he had engaged in this intentional false conduct.

And the result was that he was barred from holding office for a set period of time.

So in so many ways, Brazil has dealt with, as have other countries, what to do with political leaders who are either engaging in crimes like insurrection or intentional falsehoods and have a system to deal with that and deter that kind of behavior.

Absolutely.

You know, our president has made similar claims with respect to Bibi Netanyahu saying it's a disgrace that he is on trial.

And I could understand an American president and other presidents condemning a show trial.

But you have to have reason to point that out.

But I don't think that is what was going on here.

I looked at this and thought the president of the United States is concerned about the precedent of countries that have figured out how to hold political leaders to account.

And I looked at that and not just Brazil, it's also true in France and in England.

We have that also in many states in the United States.

So I think there are a number of them, but I think one is very, very big picture, which is understanding that as wonderful as the Constitution is, we see the flaws and how there are no structural checks and balances to much of what's going on.

In terms of what I am proposing, it is to see some version of a criminal law where if you have a politician who intentionally lies about certain subjects, let's just take the Brazil example about material fraud in an election, or the British example is intentionally lying about your opponent when you're running for office.

where they have actually stripped someone of being able to be in office after concluding, after a trial and due process that they had engaged in that conduct.