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"Nobody is Above the Law" rally held in downtown Grand Rapids

“Nobody is Above the LawCredit Patrick Center / WGVU

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Hundreds of protests were held Thursday night across the country in response to President Donald Trump’s firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replacing him with Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker.

Those opposed to Whitaker call him a Trump crony who should not oversee the Mueller Investigation into Russian election meddling.

Approximately 100 protesters, members of MoveOn.org and the Mueller Protection Rapid Response gathered at downtown Grand Rapids’ Calder Plaza for a “Nobody is Above the Law" rally.

“I’m part of a group that has been organizing for a long time waiting for this day.”

That’s Pat Hartzel joining up with about 100 others who were waiting for this day.

“Knowing that President Trump would try to shut down this investigation on him and his administration and cabinet members and all this kind of stuff and we got the text last night to show up at 5:00. There are approximately 900 of these going on all over the country and people just vowed they’d be ready to show up at their towns and cities to show support for Mueller’s investigation, to protect it, and to protect our democracy because we all truly believe that this is very, very crucial that if he shuts this down our democracy is in real trouble.”

I asked whose responsibility it is in Washington D.C. to protect the investigation?

“Oh, my goodness it’s all branch of the government. The legislators should be in on this. The Justice Department needs to be in on this, the courts, the President. This is an over 200-year democracy that we are watching crumble if we don’t have checks and balances.”

From Calder Plaza in downtown Grand Rapids, Patrick Center WGVU News.

Patrick joined WGVU Public Media in December, 2008 after eight years of investigative reporting at Grand Rapids' WOOD-TV8 and three years at WYTV News Channel 33 in Youngstown, Ohio. As News and Public Affairs Director, Patrick manages our daily radio news operation and public interest television programming. An award-winning reporter, Patrick has won multiple Michigan Associated Press Best Reporter/Anchor awards and is a three-time Academy of Television Arts & Sciences EMMY Award winner with 14 nominations.