Trump should face manslaughter charges for ‘reckless’ coronavirus conduct, ex-murder prosecutor says

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Donald Trump should face second-degree manslaughter charges over his administration’s pandemic conduct, an ex-murder prosecutor has said.

Robert Gottlieb, who served as a homicide prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, described the Republican president's actions as “reckless” as he set out his argument in a New York Daily News article this week.

“In New York, a person is guilty of second-degree manslaughter when he ‘recklessly causes the death of another person,'” Mr Gottlieb wrote.

And that, argued the prosecutor, was apparent through Mr Trump’s private admission to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that the coronavirus was a serious threat to public health.

The president, meanwhile, told Americans that the virus would “disappear”, and that Democratic concerns about his administration’s inaction were a “hoax”.

“A person acts recklessly with respect to a result or to a circumstance…when he is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk,” wrote the ex-prosecutor.

“Trump admitted to Bob Woodward knowing as early as January that COVID-19 was a deadly virus that spreads through the air via asymptomatic people. Since then, Trump has consciously disregarded the risk from exposure and instead has undertaken a systematic COVID disinformation campaign,” said Mr Gottlieb.

He then noted how the president has held numerous campaign rallies which sometimes attract thousands of maskless attendees, in apparent disregard for federal and state government guidelines on gatherings and social distancing.  

Ordinary citizens, at the same time, have been prosecuted for endangering others by breaking the same rules against mass gatherings during the pandemic, Mr Gottlieb wrote.

“Trump chose from the start to preserve his own power over protecting the people whom he swore to protect,” he concludes. “He is responsible for their deaths. That is manslaughter.”

Those remarks come as the United States’ coronavirus case count surpassed 8 million on Thursday, with almost 220,000 deaths.