With Trump, the rule is that whatever he accuses anyone else of doing is what he’s doing.
Last Friday, a court document in Fulton County was accidentally posted online before being removed. It revealed the Georiga grand jury is weighing RICO charges, forgery charges, conspiracy charges, and a charge of solicitation of violation of oath by a public official.
The two-page document cites “Violation Of The Georgia Rico (Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations) Act,” “Solicitation Of Violation Of Oath By Public Officer,” “Conspiracy To Commit False Statements and Writings” and “Conspiracy To Commit Forgery in the First Degree,” among other charges listed.
In the meantime, Trump spent the weekend making clear just how worried and how much he fears the coming indictment for election crimes in Georgia.
The former president posted the following scurrilous attack on DA Fani Willis on his Truth Social account:
“Why is “Phoney” (Like in PERFECT “PHONE” CALL, get it?) Fani Willis, the severely underperforming D.A. of Fulton County who is being accused of having an “affair” with a Gang Member of a group that she is prosecuting, leaking my name in regard to a Grand Jury pertaining to Election Fraud & Irregularities that I say took place in Georgia. I made a PERFECT PHONE CALL OF PROTEST. What does Phoney Fani have to do with me? She should instead focus on the record number of murders in Atlanta!
“The only Election Interference that took place in Fulton County, Georgia, was done by those that Rigged and Stole the Election, not by me, who simply complained that the Election was Rigged and Stolen. We have Massive and Conclusive Proof, if the Grand Jury would like to see it. Unfortunately, the publicity seeking D.A. isn’t interested in Justice, or this evidence. Also, as in Manhattan, the corrupt DOJ is pushing hard trying to keep Biden in Office. The whole system is dishonest and broken!”
On one level it is ridiculous that Trump defines a call where he pressures election officials and threatens to charge them with crimes a “perfect call of protest.”
Trump went on a Monday morning rampage in which he demanded to get to present a case before the Fulton County, GA, grand jury pushing his Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
“WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL THE FULTON COUNTY GRAND JURY THAT I DID NOT TAMPER WITH THE ELECTION. THE PEOPLE THAT TAMPERED WITH IT WERE THE ONES THAT RIGGED IT, AND SADLY, PHONEY FANI WILLIS, WHO HAS SHOCKINGLY ALLOWED ATLANTA TO BECOME ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS CITIES ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, HAS NO INTEREST IN SEEING THE MASSIVE AMOUNT OF EVIDENCE AVAILABLE, OR FINDING OUT WHO THESE PEOPLE THAT COMMITTED THIS CRIME ARE. SHE ONLY WANTS TO “GET TRUMP.” I WOULD BE HAPPY TO SHOW THIS INFO TO THE G.J.”
ALL CAPS is proof of how terrified this coward is that he is staring down a life sentence if he is convicted of any one of the crimes in his soon-to-be four felony indictments.
Trump says that he didn’t tamper with the election, but writes in his next post moments later:
“I am reading reports that failed former Lt. Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, will be testifying before the Fulton County Grand Jury. He shouldn’t. I barely know him but he was, right from the beginning of this Witch Hunt, a nasty disaster for those looking into the Election Fraud that took place in Georgia. He refused having a Special Session to find out what went on, became very unpopular with Republicans (I refused to endorse him!), and fought the TRUTH all the way. A loser, he went to FNCNN!”
Only a moron like Trump could claim not to have tampered with the election but then turn around and admit that he did
Trump is certain that he didn’t tamper with the election, except for trying to get a special session of the state legislature so that he could have them overturn the election based on non-existent fraud.
Trump seems upset about Jeff Duncan testifying, which can only mean that Duncan has testimony that Trump and his campaign committed a crime. If he were as innocent as he claimed, he would welcome Duncan’s testimony because it would support his innocence.
Experts point to this rant against a major grand jury witness as “blatantly illegal.”
Trump is committing the crime of witness tampering in public, in hopes he can convince a handful of people on the grand jury of his lies to avoid indictment.
Witness tampering comes as easily to Trump as breathing is for anyone else. Trump tampered with 1/6 committee witnesses. Trump tampered with Mueller investigation witnesses. Trump appears to be tampering with the witnesses in the indictments Jack Smith has brought. Trump is suspected of tampering with the witnesses in the New York cases and investigations of him.
Trump is trying to convince the American public that prosecutors in multiple jurisdictions and their staffs are all engaged in a conspiracy against him, led by President Biden. This is an attempt to tamper with the jury pool.
And Trump is not just limiting himself to public attacks on a prosecutor in Georgia.
After getting a stern lecture from Judge Chutkan in Washington about what he can and cannot say about the case, and his lawyers agreeing that he would bide by the judge’s order, it took less than 36 hours for Trump to demonstrate his complete inability to control himself and comply with limits on his actions.
After Judge Chutkan stated on Friday that she will do whatever is necessary to protect the integrity of the proceedings in the January 6 case , after she told him not to make such statements and after his attorneys stated he would comply with the order, he resumed his public attacks on her and her proceedings, impugning Chutkan’s motives and the proceedings against him.
What will be done about his public criming? What can be done?
Judge Chutkan can haul him into court and read him the riot act; she can impose further restrictions on his out-of-court statements with a gag order; she can ultimately hold him in contempt, even remand him into custody pending trial.
No one should expect immediate dramatic action from Chutkan. Escalating the fight too quickly could play directly into his claims of victimhood and his narrative of this all being a personal attack on him.
Trump’s ability to spend 77 years on this planet without ever being held to real account is because each new person he becomes involved with tries to give him the benefit of the doubt, or decides to play the long game with him, or makes a calculation to just grin and bear it to get what they need.
This newest round of boundary-setting followed immediately by his boundary-pushing is the same the pattern that he has engaged in over and over for decades. Trump can no more break that pattern than he can stop breathing; it’s been too successful for him.
Judge Chutkan clearly demonstrated in her Friday remarks that she knows this history. She’s no fool. She won’t be played.
Whatever she does right now, she and Trump are on a collision course that can’t be avoided indefinitely.
The same is true in Georgia, and in the Mar A Lago documents case.
Trump’s inveterate criminality goes back to his being caught at age 10 throwing rocks at a toddler in a playpen next door. He has never paid any price for his myriad transgressions.
He should have been locked in a seabag and thrown off the George Washington Bridge a long, long time ago.
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I concur with all of your thoughts re the deeply odious Donald Trump--EXCEPT your suggestion that he be placed in a sea bag and tossed off a bridge. We can’t allow Trump to drag the rest of us down into the mud where Trump lives --and thrives. I am as frustrated as anyone at the snail-like pace of the multiple proceedings against Trump. Giving Donald Trump the legally required “presumption of innocence” offers him a benefit--for the moment--that he truly doesn’t deserve. But abiding by strict principles of fair jurisprudence will leave the mentally-disturbed MAGA crowd with no ability to cry “foul” when the curtain finally comes down for him. And come down it will, despite Trump’s endless, infuriating and ludicrous manipulation of the legal process. That the decent, democracy-adhering majority of Americans are joined together in their denunciation of this criminal--and nearly criminally insane--excuse for a human being is being carefully demonstrated to all Americans and indeed to the world.
I love it! The Dunce is prosecuting himself! Now the rule of law needs to be brought to bear on Jared, Eastman, etc. and all the scumbags in Congress who helped him set up his game plan.