Kamala Harris Says Trump Should Be Held Accountable for Overturning 2020 Election and Jan 6

Vice President Kamala Harris stated on September 6 that those accountable for the attempt to rig the 2020 presidential election and the resulting violence at the US Capitol must be held accountable, even if that means Donald Trump , in an interview with The Associated Press while she was in Jakarta, Indonesia for a regional summit. “Let the evidence, the facts, take it where it may,” Harris said, noting, “Everyone has their right to their day in court.”

Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has been charged by federal prosecutors for attempting to hold on to power in 2020, spreading rumors of election interference, and staying on in office even after he lost the election. In Georgia, the former president was also accused of plotting to subvert the voters’ mandate, who chose to support Democrat Joe Biden over Trump for a second term.

“I spent the majority of my career as a prosecutor,” said Harris, who served as California’s attorney general before moving to Washington as a U.S. senator. “I believe that people should be held accountable under the law. And when they break the law, there should be accountability.”

To prevent any suggestion of political interference in the work of prosecutors, especially given that Biden is running for re-election in 2024, the White House has been cautious in its handling of the criminal accusations against Trump, who has pled not guilty.

But Biden and Harris have both been vocal about what they believe to be the very serious threat to American democracy that the 2020 election’s fallout exposes. “Democracies are very fragile,” the vice president said in the AP interview. “They will only be as strong as our willingness to fight for it.”

The vice president’s remarks, according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, were an affirmation of her faith “in our system of laws,” a faith that the president also holds. “This is something that of course the president shares and believes in … but I’m going to let the Department of Justice do their job independently,” Jean-Pierre said.

Biden is often seen as being too old for president, but Harris disregarded worries about his age, 80. According to a recent AP/NORC survey, 77% of Americans and 69% of Democrats believe he is too elderly to serve another term. Given that she would succeed a president who would be 86 by the end of a probable second term, Harris would be subject to greater scrutiny in that capacity.

Harris called it “hypothetical” that she may take office as president, but she insisted that she was prepared. “Joe Biden is going to be fine, so that is not going to come to fruition,” she stated. “But let us also understand that every vice president — every vice president — understands that when they take the oath they must be very clear about the responsibility they may have to take over the job of being president, & I’m no different.”