Trump Indictment Proves ‘Nobody’s Above The Law’

Former President Barack Obama says the indictment of Donald Trump sends a troubling message to the rest of the world, but ultimately “does uphold the basic notion that nobody’s above the law and the allegations will now be sorted out through a court process.”

Obama, in an exclusive interview Thursday with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, said Democratic institutions in the U.S. had grown “creaky,” but the rule of law still reigns—for now. “I do believe that democracy will win if we fight for it,” Obama said. “Our existing democratic institutions are creaky, and we’re going to have to reform them.”

Amanpour interviewed the former president in Athens, where he spoke on democracy at the SNF Nostos Conference. Obama said Trump’s indictment was “less than ideal,” but said that more worrying than Trump’s handling of government documents was his broader efforts to “silence critics through changes in the legislative process” to efforts to “intimidate the press.”

Obama said that those efforts are “right now most prominent in the Republican Party, but I don’t think it’s something that is unique to one party.” Looking forward to the 2024 presidential election—with Trump leading in many Republican primary polls—Obama said “having been president of the United States, you need a president who takes the oath of office seriously. You need a president who believes not just in the letter but in the spirit of democracy.”

Amanpour’s hourlong interview, “Obama & Amanpour: Will Democracy Win?” airs Thursday night at 10 p.m. ET on CNN and CNN International.