Donald Trump’s supporters unleashed a wave of death threats and antisemitic and homophobic messages to the judge overseeing his fraud trial, as well as his chief clerk, according to a state court filing this week.
A filing to support New York Justice Arthur Engoron’s opposition to a freeze on a gag order in the case includes a statement from the court’s top security official, who has collected “hundreds of threats, disparaging and harassing comments and antisemitic messages” that followed the former president’s harassment.
Federal prosecutors – who are seeking a separate gag order – shared those threats with the federal appeals court judges who will decide whether Mr Trump should be gagged in his election interference case.
But on Friday, the former president’s attorneys dismissed those threats as “irrelevant”.
“All my client did is say that the court personnel should die. That his followers proceeded to threaten to kill them is unrelated.” You have to wonder if the lawyers involved are just trying to do their best to represent a client they know is batshit fucking crazy, or if they’ve actually bought into the madness.
He never comes right out and says that though. He whines about how the person is horrible and a traitor and how they are destroying the country, but he never explicitly calls for death or violence. He never tells his followers to attack or harass his targets, but they all know full well what he wants them to do when he selects a target for them.
This is how mob bosses talk. Giving orders without explicitly stating what they want done. That way they can turn around, just like Trump is doing, and claim that they didn’t tell anyone to harass the judge and the clerk, they were just exercising their right to free speech.
Trump has gotten closer than you’re suggesting to directly call for violence.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/trump-milley-execution-incitement-violence/675435/
Donald Trump, on his social-media network, Truth Social, wrote that Mark Milley’s phone call to reassure China in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.” (The phone call was, in fact, explicitly authorized by Trump-administration officials.)
A real mob boss might be smart enough not to publicly say that a person deserves to die.
Valid, but he still didn’t make an explicit call for action. That’s why he keeps getting away with it. This court needs to shut this crap down.
Maybe they are just the best Trump could find after not paying his former lawyers or they now are in prison.
I am sure there are some lawyers who buy into it but probably not many since lawyer education requires extensive critical reasoning and logic skills.
The lawyers are there to do a job… Represent their client and make every effort possible in the interest of their client within the bounds of the law.
It’s amazing. These are the best lawyers trump can find…
Which means there are worse lawyers…
When you’re notorious for not paying your lawyers, you’re not going to get the best lawyers.
Plus, lawyers are obligated to defend their client, even when they do something indefensible. I don’t think even the best lawyer could’ve come up with a better argument.
A lawyer can walk away if the client is engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise, if he’s using the lawyer to perpetuate his illegal scheme, or if the client asks the lawyer to do something illegal himself.
Feels like chances would be pretty good for Trump’s lawyers to dump him if they really wanted to.
Good point
Also, Trump is notorious for not listening to his lawyers. His lawyers might tell him to not say something because it increases his legal jeopardy. Then, he goes out and says it anyway.
they’re obligated to provide a competent defense. Doesn’t mean throwing out useless arguments. when the client is guilty, their job isn’t to prove innocence, but to minimize sentencing. Pissing off the judge is not conducive to that goal.
In a twist of fate, he actually found better lawyers, but they quit and are suing him for failure to pay.
Trump is a cult leader. Much like Charles Manson, all he has to do is speak, and there are carzy cultist who will do what he wants.
Trump: “Stand back and stand by”. The Proud Boys are an armed and violent hate group at Trump command. There are many metally ill people that listen to their leader and they are also standing by for Trump to speak.
Agree with most of this.
Can we collectively stop pinning this stuff on mental illness though?
Maybe I watch too many interviews of Trump supporters talking, or listen to them at work. They say crazy things and Trump is able to connect–or more accurately, use them. But you are right, there are many who are not crazy and support Trump. They just give a small knowing smile when they hear their fellow supporters doing the crazy talk.
Charles Mason… Some kind of canning cult? 😉
A bricklaying cult. Why do you think “build the wall” became such a rallying cry?
There’s already a bricklaying cult… Well they call themselves a fraternal order, whatever that means. 😁
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Damn you autocorrect! Thanks for replying.
I would vote for any female that met him on a debate stage and dropped references to 1) his mushroom dick 2) his tiny hands and 3) the fact that he had to pay hookers to touch his mushroom dick and keep quiet about it.
He would call her any sort of horrible names names on stage and her comeback would be ‘don’t you pay $200,000 extra for that?’
The meltdown would be glorious.
I mean, his wife is a hooker.
An even BETTER comeback! ‘Does your wife charge you extra for that sort of thing? Or was that what was renegotiated in the last prenup?’
Woman*
He thought “gag order” meant that it wasn’t serious.
There is possibly a reasonable argument in there. The gag order prohibited Trump from targeting people, not others.
However this should (hopefully) fall flat against the raw numbers that have been presented: 3rd party threats went up each time Trump and/or his lawyers said something malicious, and they went down after the gag order was put in place.
I think the “I didn’t do anything, they did” is their argument in the January 6th trial too.
Yeah, and judges have already rejected that argument when it came to dismissing the case.
Incredible when you consider it coming from the crybaby who had a mental breakdown because SNL made fun of him.
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