Legal experts were astonished
Trump may have put himself in worse jeopardy.
Donald Trump’s incendiary call at a Texas rally for his backers to ready massive protests against “radical, vicious, racist prosecutors” could constitute obstruction of justice or other crimes and backfire legally on Trump, say former federal prosecutors.
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Trump’s rant that his followers should launch the “biggest protests” ever in three cities should prosecutors “do anything wrong or illegal” by criminally charging him for his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, or for business tax fraud, came at a 30 January rally in Texas where he repeated falsehoods that the election was rigged.
Legal experts were astonished at Trump’s strong hints that if he runs and wins a second term in 2024, he would pardon many of those charged for attacking the Capitol on 6 January last year in hopes of thwarting Biden’s certification by Congress.
John Dean said it was the stuff of dictators, which of course applies to a lot of what Trump has said and done, in and out of office.
Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor who is of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy, told the Guardian Trump “may have shot himself in the foot” with the comments. “Criminal intent can be hard to prove, but when a potential defendant says something easily seen as intimidating or threatening to those investigating the case it becomes easier,” Aftergut said.
Aftergut added that having proclaimed “his support for the insurrectionists, Trump added evidence of his corrupt intent on January 6 should the DOJ prosecute him for aiding the seditious conspiracy, or for impeding an official proceeding of Congress”.
Other than that he should be ok.
Ex-prosecutors say that Trump’s Texas comments are dangerous and could legally boomerang as the prosecutors appear to have new momentum.
“Our criminal laws seek to hold people accountable for their purposeful actions,” Paul Pelletier, a former acting chief of the fraud section at DOJ, said. “Trump’s history of inciting people to violence demonstrates that his recent remarks are likely to cause a disruption of the pending investigations against him and family members.”
Pelletier added: “Should his conduct actually impede any of these investigations, federal and state obstruction statutes could easily compound Mr Trump’s criminal exposure.”
Also, he’s pissing off the prosecutors, which is probably not a brilliant idea either.
Trump’s remarks resonated especially in Georgia, where former prosecutors say he may now face new legal problems. Former prosecutor Aftergut noted that [Georgia DA Fani] Willis understood the threat when she quickly asked the FBI to provide protection at the courthouse, and he predicted that the immediate effect on the deputy DAs working on the case would be “to energize them in pursuing the case”.
“You’re threatening us, Goldilocks? Ok, game on.”
In a similar vein, ex-ambassador Norm Eisen and States United Democracy Center co-chair said Trump’s call for protests in Atlanta, New York and Washington if prosecutors there charge him “certainly sounds like a barely veiled call for violence. That’s particularly true when you combine it with his other statements at the Texas rally about how the last crowd of insurrectionists are being mistreated and did no wrong”.
In other words he’s openly calling for a repeat of January 6 only worse. Let’s hope that backfires on him as opposed to succeeding.
If Trump’s bus does happen to backfire, I think we can rest assured that he will happily chuck a selection of his dumber followers, disciples, apostles and acolytes under it in order to save himself. As “the world’s most stable genius” he arguably owes it not just to them, but to us all.
Then, as the ranks of his followers etc reach a certain critical low density (in the physical or the mental sense, or both: take your pick) we will be approaching the point at which he is in the (driverless) bus on his own, being carried off into the sunset. Perhaps Hollywood’s Dream Factory could make something of that.
He senses the walls closing in and he’s lashing out in panic. It seems crazy that he might imagine he can intimidate all the official agencies that are investigate him and might prosecute him into dropping their cases, but intimidation and bullying have served him well for most of his life, and he may just be too mentally limited to respond in any other way. And he can never admit he was wrong about anything, even when the alternative is digging deeper into self-incrimination.
I’d expect a lot more talk like this from him. Panic doesn’t led to good strategic thinking.
The wheels of justice move slowly, though, don’t they? Any sort of action taken by him will take years to process, with delays in court and motions to tie up the system, that he will probably never see a prison cell.
My hope is that he never, ever, sees the inside of the Oval Office again and then his next move is into a home where he rants at clouds for a couple of years until he dies a quiet, unheralded death. We don’t hang dictators by their boots in the U.S.
The wheels of justice move slowly, though, don’t they?
It’s a complex and therefore slow process. I don’t know whether a former president has ever previously been indicted on such serious charges — it may be unprecedented in US history. I’d rather they took the time to get things right rather than rush into it and make mistakes that could enable Trump to escape justice on a technicality.
The only way I could see delay causing a real problem is if he takes office as president again in January 2025. But that’s almost three years away, and I don’t think things will take that long. It also seems very unlikely he could get elected again, after the 2020 result, losing by 7 million votes in a year when Republicans won most seriously-contested races. It’s remotely possible that a different Republican might become president and pardon him, but that wouldn’t affect state-level charges in New York and Georgia.
The process is going slower than I’d like, personally, because I want to see him prosecuted and shamed SO MUCH. But that being said, I’m glad that the gears are grinding along carefully and inexorably, because when it does happen (I hope), it will be crystal clear and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.
It was so much easier in the Olden Days when the new chieftain could declare a blood eagle should be performed on the previous one.
It was so much easier in the Olden Days when the new chieftain could declare a blood eagle should be performed on the previous one
I wouldn’t have wanted to be Obama on January 21, 2017 under that system. Civilized law can be frustrating, but it’s worth it.
Trump has always been an adherent to the ‘if someone hits you, hit back harder’ school of ‘thought’. it’s reflexively tough guy, without actually being tough, more just vicious, which a lot of people mistake for being tough.