Trump, Kushner Share 'Criminal Responsibility' for COVID Deaths: Kirschner

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said on Friday that former President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, a former White House adviser, share "criminal responsibility" for COVID-19 deaths after a recently released witness interview revealed their pandemic-related conduct following Joe Biden's 2020 presidential election win.

Kirschner said during his Justice Matters video posted to Twitter that the Trump administration was "criminally negligent" in handling COVID-19 pandemic, at a time when deaths from the virus were skyrocketing. The former prosecutor, who now works as a legal analyst for MSNBC, specifically discussed the period when the Trump administration turning over pandemic data to the incoming Biden administration after the 2020 election.

His remarks came in reference to a recently released transcript of an April interview that the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot had with Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former White House director of strategic communications. The interview was among dozens of witness transcripts released by the committee shortly after it published its final report last week, which outlined efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results.

In Farah Griffin's interview with the committee, she testified that Kushner excluded the Biden administration from COVID-19 planning, according to the transcript. This move prevented a smooth and formal transition, in which incoming Biden officials would be promptly updated by their Trump administration counterparts at the time.

Griffin told the committee that Deborah Brix, who served as the White House's COVID task force under Trump, asked days after the election whether or not Biden staff should be kept in the loop about pandemic-related plans. Kushner responded "absolutely not" and then moved on with the meeting, according to Griffin.

"That was Jared Kushner, making sure that there would not be a smooth, safe, informed transition of a topic that was critically important to the health and well-being of the American people," Kirschner said on Friday, adding that Trump, Kushner, and former Vice President Mike Pence are responsible for "avoidable COVID deaths."

Kirschner contended that Pence is also responsible because he was the head of the Coronavirus Task Force for some time, and he "let Donald Trump lie to the American people and endanger us all. The legal analyst argued that the former president repeatedly downplayed the risks of the virus.

Could Trump and Kushner be Charged for Causing COVID Deaths?

Kirschner suggested that being responsible for COVID deaths could be prosecuted as "involuntary manslaughter" under D.C. laws, but that requires proving three elements for the case to be treated as such.

He explained that prosecutors in D.C. courts first need to prove that the person acted in a "grossly negligent" manner, which could possibly apply to Trump because he had a "duty to protect American people and he failed and that failure was a product of... gross negligence." Trump was also "grossly negligent" in the way he managed messages related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Kirschner.

"Second element: They're grossly negligent conduct was reasonably likely to result in death or serious bodily injury of another. In other words, Trump's gross negligence put people in harm's way," Kirschner said.

He also said that Kushner's "grossly negligent" conduct was "much worse" than Trump's and described it as "beyond reckless" because it endangered people's lives. The former federal prosecutor referenced a Business Insider article, which reported that Kushner's team believed the virus hit Democratic states the hardest and that governors could be blamed for that.

Thirdly, the charge of "involuntary manslaughter" requires proving that "grossly negligent conduct caused the death of another. While that doesn't necessarily mean that an act of violence, such as stabbing or strangling, has been committed, it means that one's behavior was a "substantial" factor in a victim's death, according to Kirschner.

"The law defines causation as somebody's conduct being a substantial factor in bringing about the death of another," he explained. "Their [Trump, Pence, and Kushner] gross negligence thereby caused the death of other people."

How the Trump and Biden Administrations' COVID Preparedness Compare?

Biden campaigned heavily on addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, vowing to protect Americans and introduce plans to combat the virus more. However, COVID-19 deaths under his administration in January surpassed those recorded under Trump, as the virus continued to spread, despite Biden's pandemic-related mandates.

Still, some experts believed that the Trump administration could have avoided COVID-19 deaths had they responded to the virus differently.

In January 2021, when the over 400,000 COVID-19 deaths were reported, Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told the Associated Press that the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic led to thousands of avoidable deaths.

"Everything about how it's been managed has been infused with incompetence and dishonesty, and we're paying a heavy price," he said at the time. Meanwhile, Cliff Daniels, chief strategy officer for Methodist Hospital of Southern California, shared a similar view, saying that "it's so incredibly, unimaginably sad that so many people have died that could have been avoided."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's media office, the White House and the National Center for Disaster Preparedness for comment.