Anyone who has watched the Godfather franchise movies knows this: a favorite tactic of criminals to stay out of jail is to silence the witnesses. Either intimidate them into keeping quiet or if that fails, then kill them off.
As we have seen in the last few years, it’s not only mafia villains who resort to this tactic: one high profile thug who has repeatedly done this sat in the Oval Office from 2016 to 2020. No, he has not killed any of them, he has simply bullied and terrified them into lying or keeping silent about the various crimes he allegedly committed and for which the LAW is finally catching up with him.
Trump was arraigned Thursday on four federal charges alleging that he orchestrated a plan to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He pleaded not guilty.
“IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” (all in caps) is the latest threat that he issued the day after to any witnesses that may be thinking of testifying against him in the multiple trials that he will be facing soon.
Trump is the king of revenge, a man who proudly claims that his guiding principle is: “if you hit me, I hit you back ten times harder”.
Trump’s conflict resolution skills amount to this when faced with a heckler: “I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell ya.”
Protesting against him elicits this response: “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
Trump tries to justify his tendency to violence by normalizing it as “the American way”. “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks,” he says.
But this kind of violence only applies to his opponents and rivals. When it comes to his supporters however, even storming the US Capitol and causing damage, injuries and death is “peaceful protest” in his mind, and those who do his bidding–like marching to the Capitol to overthrow a legal election–are “patriots” who love their country. Mayhem is fine if it’s in the service of his unlawful words or actions.
Given his previous record of intimidation and his proclivity for violence and revenge, the Justice Department on Friday asked Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the criminal case against Trump in Washington, to step in after he released the post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.
The order — which is different from a so-called “gag order” — would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith. Such protective orders are common in criminal cases, but prosecutors said it’s “particularly important in this case” because Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”
His hate-filled rhetoric against the FBI, the DOJ and other law enforcement agencies propels his fanatical supporters to send death threats to these folks who are serving their country. Trump may not personally send a hit squad after an opponent, but he has no qualms about destroying their lives.
In June, Andrea “Shaye” Moss testified to lawmakers about how her life was destroyed when Donald Trump and his allies falsely accused her and her mother, Ruby Freeman, of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase in Georgia. Moss, who is Black, said she received messages “wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother. And saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”
Trump’s persecution of Moss and Freeman has been relentless. “There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere,” Freeman told the committee in the prerecorded video. “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American, not to target one.”
Several of the Trump supporters who bought into the election lies even showed up at the home of Moss’ grandmother to make a citizen’s arrest and Moss, fearing the mob camped outside her home and shouting threats, had to flee.
“Donald Trump didn’t care about the threats of violence,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the vice chair of the committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurgence, stated. Indeed, as America saw on Jan. 6, 2020, not only did Trump stoke the violence that ended as the Capitol invasion, but then he stood by for hours and did nothing to quell it. Reportedly he watched and exulted that the rioters, “love me.”
Speaking of the latest threat that Trump posted after Tuesdays’ indictment, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham commented, “I think it’s chilling.”
“Legally it doesn’t seem like it’s very smart, but how is that not intimidation? What other people are going to take a message from that?” she asked rhetorically.
