August 3rd: Donald Trump receives a warning from the judge overseeing his arraignment.
August 4th: Donald Trump responds.
A "spokesman" later "clarified" that Trump was referring only to "RINO, China-loving, dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs." Approximately no one believes this, least of all Jack Smith, who's prosecuting Trump:
Federal prosecutors asked a judge on Friday for a protective order limiting what Donald Trump and his team can say about the criminal case against him....Prosecutors’ request for the protective order came a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to forcibly overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
You have to admit that Trump keeps things lively.
And people wonder why the institutions of this country lose respect...
Yeah, but his fan base eats this stuff up. They think it's WWE, staged for entertainment.
Well said
Yes the act from the Indicted is for the Base. But the way my government acts is for his money...
Dans tout État policé, la richesse est chose sacrée; dans les démocraties elle est la seule chose sacrée.
Thibault
Because the justice department is holding Trump accountable for his behavior?
Surely you jest.
I think what happens now is, Chutkan hauls him in, puts him under oath, and tells him to explain in his own words whom, exactly, he was referring to.
After he recites the bullshit, she then calmly lectures him on the gravity of the offenses against him and warns him about the consequences of being cute again. And that's it.
Which I think in this case is probably fine. He'll feel utterly humiliated being dressed down by a black woman with very real authority over him, and very likely act out badly enough that fence-sitters will have to agree dude's yap needs to be running behind plexiglass.
Oh man, I would pay so much to see that. Can you make it happen?
Seriously, what are the consequences of Trump continuing to threaten prosecutors and witnesses? Is she really going to revoke Trump’s pretrial release status and send him to jail? I don’t see it happening. Which also means that the judge would just be talking to hear herself talk.
I was just thinking the same thing, but I also think that the way he said it was deliberate. He is testing limits and also, if/when he gets away with it, extending them. It is something of a dare and a power play too. If she is not strong here he will walk all over her.
Agreed. I think he’s a coward and I don’t think he’s very bright but Trump’s got a low animal cunning. He’s definitely testing whether anyone is trying to set boundaries.
Bingo!
The problem is that Trump knows with certainty that he can make whatever threats he wants and he won’t lose his pretrial release status. Which, in turn, gives real power to his threats. It would take real courage to be a witness against a mob boss who has that kind of impunity.
I don’t see how you can have a trial where a defendant has total impunity to carry out threats against prosecutors, judges, and witnesses. In one of the cases against him he’s got the judge in his pocket and in in others Trump’s free to try to intimidate the government’s witnesses. Lock him up!
It will take something fairly serious to get Trump detained, but I don't believe he has COMPLETE impunity.
What would it take? He recently tweeted out Obama’s DC address and one of Trump’s followers was almost immediately arrested at or near that place. If I were a witness against Trump, I’d certainly be intimidated by a mob boss whose sense of complete impunity allows him to flirt with the idea of having a former president assassinated.
It's not a binary choice between either letting him run amok pretrial or locking him up from now until the trial begins. If Trump keeps threatening witnesses then she can order him arrested and detained for, say, 48 hours, and then warn him not to do it again. If he does it again the she can detain him for a week. And so on.
I have a feeling we're going to head down that road.
The question is: detained where and detained how? It would be an incredibly bold and dangerous move to lock him (and a group of secret service agents) up in the regular DC jail. Clearly, that’s Trump’s greatest fear but it’s also unlikely beyond belief. It would be a real “Charles I” moment and I don’t think that the elites in this country are ready to accept that kind of accountability so it remains as unthinkable as executing an hereditary monarch.
But there’s realistically no other way to control Trump.
"But there’s realistically no other way to control Trump."
Which is exactly why it's going to happen. Think of it less as a Charles I moment and more as a Al Capone moment.
And yet Charles I was beheaded!
But the people who were most interested in seeing Charles I executed were basically the winners in the Civil War. He was largely friendless and completely at the mercy of his enemies. By contrast, Trump is the undisputed leader of the dominant political party and freely uses his power of being the MAGA leader to punish apostates and extricate himself from difficult situations.
The Attorney General’s clearly terrified of Trump and the Republican Party and wouldn’t approve of imprisonment for Trump even if he’s convicted. Also, Trump probably has an even money chance of winning the presidency again and, if he does, I wouldn’t want to be Smith or the judge or a witness against him.
The GOP has a slight majority in the House, and firm control of the Supreme Court, but for now the Democrats have the Senate and White House, so neither party enjoys a dominant position. Yes, some polls show a close race in 2024, but IMHO tfg’s 40% is near a ceiling, and Biden’s 40% is a floor.
I see the Republican Party as increasingly dominant because of the potential for more and more minority rule. And because they are essentially unopposed by the Democratic Party whose control of both the White House and the senate seems rather tenuous and the use to which that control has been put seems passive and ineffectual.
Mitch I feel your frustration and fear for our country, I do, but I think you are missing or at least underestimating what the Democrats and the Biden administraton have accomplished:
1) the most progressive set of programs since LBJ.
2) Jack Smith. Garland was slow to act sure but he acted and Smith looks like the man to take off Charles's head.
It's not all clear sailing from here but it's possible we are at ana inflection point bolstered by dying conservatives and preogressive leaning 18-30 year olds.
I wouldn’t completely disagree with you, particularly about Biden’s presidency which I agree has been excellent (if needlessly non-confrontational). Honestly, though, I just don’t see this ending well for the country. And I don’t see anybody reining in Trump.
confine him to Trump tower. replace his current secret service detail with new people.. back them up with military police. limit conversation to immediate family members until the trial. any violations result in confinement club FED with no outside contact at all.
put the onus on him with ratcheting levels of silence.
no?
Can she not order all social media companies to suspend his ability to post anything for the duration of the trial? If he won’t shut up on social media and if he can’t be thrown in jail, she needs to cut off his social media. And the social media companies aren’t going to want to be hauled into criminal court.
Also, just locking him in a hotel room with a TV but no access to any internet would be sufficient to shut him up too online. “Jail” doesn’t have to be literal jail.
austion
She could order social media companies NOT to allow him a platform - except one and that is Truth Social. Then you have political rallies where he speaks to his followers in person.
No, in this case we have to set the boundaries loosely but then act decisively when he exceeds those boundaries.
Ratchet the punishment up at each step. He will eventually put himself in jail or isolation. THAT is what would silence him.
This of course is all contingent upon Trump not directing his wrath against specific people in his diatribes. Saying Smith is troubled is different than saying Smith needs to be beaten by an unruly mob. Trumps history is to push the envelope as far as he can then claim he is being targeted.
So, set the parameters early along with the punishment then stick to it.
All the while holding trials as quickly as they come up.
The nation, as a whole is tiring of Trump. Trumps supporters are going way too far (Tommy Tuberville) and its beginning to hurt Trump in places like the military.
He and his supporters will run out of possible excuses and when Trump dies (which will happen sooner, rather than later) - who will they turn to? Nobody in the republican party has the notoriety that he does.
I agree that being called before Judge Chutkan and reprimanded is necessary. I also believe that any further offenses must, MUST result in incarceration. Or, as they say, LOCK HIM UP.
And take away is tweety phone. Ditto his Secret Service protection -- no reason any president who earns jail time should have an SS detail. (yes, yes, "the law" -- another thing Congress needs to address, when we get a sane, mature Congress one day.)
He is a criminal without any impulse control, so this is completely expected.
Didn't Roy Cohn teach him to have his henchmen intimidate the witnesses and jurors.
I’m sure that would’ve been Roy’s advice to a normal mobster. But Trump’s a mobster who enjoys impunity and it’s definitely in his interest to make sure that the judges, prosecutors, and witnesses know this and understand its meaning. Since his rise, there’s been more than a few MAGA-killers who’ve done Trump’s bidding.
Kevin writes: "You have to admit that Trump keeps things lively."
Back in 2016, I heard something similar, offered as a rationalization for voting for Trump: "He might be a clown but at least he won't be boring."
There is a significant portion of Americans that wants nothing more from politics than cheap entertainment. "Economic anxiety" my ass. This is the attitude of a fat, sated and bored middle class.
Yes. A fat, sated and bored middle class which is afraid of losing their privileged position to "undeserving" others. And a filthy rich upper class which has the money and means (Fox) to amplify that fear so that the middle class continues to vote the way the rich want them to.
I'm of the opinion that it's not good enough to let his statement remain ambiguous. People, like Fox News journalists and reporters, need to push him to name the people who are going after him.
The ambiguity creates reasonable doubt. It is the duty of journalists to remove it. Force him to speak up or STFU. If you force him to STFU, then you know exactly how chickenshit he really is, deep down inside.
I personally wouldn’t normally use “Fox News” and “journalists” in the same sentence. They are basically propagandists for the Republican Party. They’ve got no incentive to push Trump.
They may not have an incentive, but they should do it. Trump takes people down with him as he descends into darkness.
Also, they have the greatest reach in that echo chamber.
Whether or not they are willing, well that's an entirely different issue. So yeah, I agree with your sentiment, but they should be prodded to do it nonetheless.
Would Trump comply with a gag order? I'm tickled by the idea of him going to jail for contempt of court before he ever even goes on trial.
The best thing I've heard all day is this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/04/donald-trump-scared-puppy-nancy-pelosi
"He looked like a scared puppy" - Nancy Pelosi
That is close to the most painful experience Trump knows, it seems to me. Hearing that person say that.
It should be clear by now that Trump respects nothing. For him the only truth is his. And he really believes on any day he chose that he could shoot someone in cold blood on 5th avenue and get away with it. And in a sense that is what he tried by denying the results of the election and encouraging people to overthrow the the election results….. in broad daylight as well.
I long for the day when all citizens are treated equally by the law.
If that were true right now, Trump would be safely in jail.
I have a visceral hatred of anyone who thinks that kings, or anyone else, is above the law.
There seems to be some confusion in the Comments about the difference between impunity and immunity.
If the headline isn't going to be "threatens justice system" or "threatens federal employees", could "enemies" at least be put in quotes ? Why have a post title that employs extreme right wing framing ?
+1
(Seen on in a Reddit comment)
The schadenfreude is STRONG for Trump