Trump Vows to ‘Come After’ Foes
If you thought the first term was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
POLITICO (“Feds alert judge to Trump’s ‘If you go after me, I’m coming after you!’ post“):
Prosecutors on Friday night called a judge’s attention to a social media post from Donald Trump — issued hours earlier — in which they say the former president appeared to declare that he’s “coming after” those he sees as responsible for the series of formidable legal challenges he is facing.
Attorneys from special counsel Jack Smith’s team said the post from Trump “specifically or by implication” referenced those involved in his criminal case for seeking to subvert the 2020 election.
In a court filing just before 10 p.m. Friday, Senior Assistant Special Counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom alerted the judge in Trump’s latest criminal case – U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan – to a combative post Trump sent earlier in the day.
“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Trump wrote in all caps Friday afternoon on Truth Social, which is run by a media company he co-owns.
The prosecutors said Trump’s post raised concerns that he might improperly share evidence in the case on his social media account and they urged that he be ordered to keep any evidence prosecutors turn over to his defense team from public view.
“All the proposed order seeks to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public,” Gaston and Windom wrote. “Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him. … And in recent days, regarding this case, the defendant has issued multiple posts—either specifically or by implication—including the following, which the defendant posted just hours ago.”
Smith’s office has not sought a gag order in either of the criminal cases it is pursuing against Trump: one in Florida focused on his retention of classified documents and the other in Washington over his efforts to interfere with the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The filing Friday night does not make any request to bar Trump or his attorneys from discussing the D.C. case publicly or with the media.
However, prosecutors in that case have indicated they’re prepared to share a “substantial“ volume of evidence with Trump as soon as Chutkan approves an order governing the handling of evidence. Chutkan is slated to bring attorneys for both sides to court on Aug. 28 to discuss setting a trial date. It’s unclear if Trump’s post will prompt her to seek more immediate efforts to implement a protective order or to impose a gag order, which can be issued under D.C. federal court rules.
Trump’s Truth Social post came just one day after he swore in federal court that he would not make any effort to influence or retaliate against witnesses or make any other actions that might obstruct the administration of justice in his case. Asked by a magistrate judge on Tuesday to verify that he would comply with that instruction, Trump acknowledged it and said that he would.
The Truth Social post made no specific reference to any witnesses or court personnel, but Trump has often used his social media megaphone to attack prosecutors and judges in the criminal cases he is facing.
Trump is as prolific on Truth Social as he was on the service formerly known as Twitter, so it took a while to scroll down to find the actual (whatever the Truth Social version of whatever a Tweet is now called is):
In the context of a guy who fomented an insurrection, this certainly reads as a threat of violence. In the context of his stream of consciousness on the social platform, including rants about the so-called Deep State, it’s less clear.
These, for example, have been “truthed” since that one:
At Rolling Stone, Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley (“Jack Smith Has an Indictment. Trump Has a Massive Plan for Revenge“) have a plausible explanation:
DONALD TRUMP IS a long, long way from winning the GOP primary, let alone retaking the White House. But he always has revenge on his mind, and his allies are preparing to use a future administration to not only undo all of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s work — but to take vengeance on Smith, and on virtually everyone else, who dared investigate Trump during his time out of power.
Rosters full of MAGAfied lawyers are being assembled. Plans are being laid for an entire new office of the Justice Department dedicated to “election integrity.” An assembly line is being prepared of revenge-focused “special counsels” and “special prosecutors.” Gameplans for making Smith’s life hell, starting in Jan. 2025, have already been discussed with Trump himself. And a fresh wave of pardons is under consideration for Trump associates, election deniers, and — the former president boasts — for Jan. 6 rioters.
The preparations have been underway since at least last year, with Trump being briefed on the designs by an array of attorneys, political and policy advisers, former administration officials, and other allies. The aim is to build a government-in-waiting with the hard-right infrastructure needed to turn the Justice Department into an instrument of Trump’s agenda, according to five sources familiar with these matters and another two people briefed on them.
[…]
One idea that has caught thrice-indicted former president’s attention in recent months is the creation of the so-called “Office of Election Integrity,” which would be a new unit inside the Justice Department. It would be tasked not only with relitigating Trump’s lies about his 2020 election loss, but also with aggressively pursuing baseless allegations of election “fraud” (including in Democratic strongholds) in ways that Trumpist partisans believe the department has only flirted with in the past.
[…]
And when it comes to Special Counsel Smith’s office — which just handed Trump his third indictment, this one related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election — the former president and his fellow travelers already know what they want: They want the FBI and DOJ to name names.
This year, close advisers to Trump have begun the process of assembling lists of the names of federal personnel who have investigated the former president and his circle for years, and are attempting to unmask the identities of all the DOJ attorneys and others connected to Smith’s office. The obvious purpose of this, according to one source close to Trump, is to “show them the door on Day 1 [if Trump’s reelected]” — and so “we know who should receive a subpoena” in the future.
Such subpoenas would of course be instrumental in Trumpland’s vows to its voters that, should he return to power, Trump and his new attorney general will launch a raft of their own retaliatory “special counsel” and “special prosecutor” probes to investigate-the-investigator, and to go after their key enemies. As it were, Jeffrey Clark, a former DOJ official and a central figure in Trump’s efforts to subvert the legitimate 2020 presidential election results, has been on Trump’s informal shortlist for plum assignments, including even attorney general, in a potential second administration.
Sources familiar with the situation tell Rolling Stone that Trump and his close ideological allies — working at an assortment of MAGA-prone think tanks, advocacy organizations, and legal groups — are formulating plans for a wide slate of “special prosecutors.” In this vision, such prosecutors would go after the usual targets: Smith, Smith’s team, President Joe Biden, Biden’s family, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI director Christopher Wray. But they’d also go after smaller targets, from members of the Biden 2020 campaign to more obscure government offices.
“There are almost too many targets to keep track of,” says one Trump adviser familiar with the discussions. Trump and members of his inner orbit have already outlined possible legal strategies, examining specific federal statutes they could wield in a Republican-controlled Justice Department to go after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who delivered Trump’s first indictment of this year.
The FBI’s investigation of over a thousand rioters who breached and trashed the Capitol on Jan. 6 — officially the largest criminal investigation in Justice Department history — is another area where Trump has stated he would like to reverse course. “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,” Trump told host Kaitlan Collins during a CNN town hall in May.
When the broader topic of possible second-term pardons has come up behind closed doors, Trump has at times said that such pardons should be signed at the start of the term, not saved for the later on, according to those who’ve heard him discuss it since last year. Aside from the rioters themselves, Trump has also privately floated issuing a wave of pardons to higher-ranking figures who were scrutinized in Special Counsel Smith’s two main investigations.
“This would be like hitting the delete-key on all of DOJ’s work on these investigations,” a person intimately familiar with the conversations told Rolling Stone in March. In the past several months, when confidants have quipped to Trump that he may have to “pardon yourself,” should he return to the Oval Office, the ex-president has sometimes simply smirked and replied that they’ll have to wait and see.
Another major focus of some of these counter-probes would be “grand jury violations,” says one person familiar with the matter. The counter-probe of those alleged “violations” is the surest sign yet that in a second Trump administration, the Justice Department would seek to investigate the special counsel’s use of grand juries in the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases. (Indeed, Trump has already vowed to sic a special counsel on President Biden if he beats him in 2024.)
Some of these “special prosecutors” wouldn’t even be based out of the Justice Department, as special counsels typically are. In some of these private Trumpworld legal plans, some of the “special counsels” would be based out of places like the White House. This idea is nearly identical to the controversial position that Trumpist lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell tried to convince then-President Trump to give her in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
There’s more but you get the idea. Basically, a combination of the delusions of a madman and full-on fascism.
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/if-you-go-after-me?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf
https://nitter.net/rparloff/status/1687736030592417792
Obtaining one usually takes only a few days because defense lawyers are usually happy to sign off on it; they want the discovery materials ASAP so they can start preparing case. Here, however, the key defense is delay …
/3
because Trump hopes he can win election, seize control of DOJ, trash post-Watergate safeguards & kill both federal indictments. So in USA v Trump (M-a-L) Trump managed to get inexperienced Judge Cannon to set preposterously slow motions calendar …
/4
for deciding minor protective order disputes. (Tho that one’s a CIPA [Classified Info Proc Act] Protective Order, even those are routinely approved within a week, per
@BVanGrack
.) So while USA wanted to provide 1st tranche of classified discovery on 7/10 in M-a-L case …
/5
Judge Cannon’s motion schedule delayed it until 9/7—almost 2 months of needless delay. To avoid repeat here, govt asks Judge Chutkan to issue the protective order immediately (see below), allowing govt to turn over discovery now …
/6
and then take up any defense bickering about how to fine-tune its terms later. That way case isn’t needless derailed in the meantime. Smart move.
/7-end
I wonder how many people are contemplating second amendment solutions to the Cheeto problem.
“If you thought the first term was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
And yet, this is hardly the worst thing to expect in a second Trump Administration. Rather, there is a plan to remake the entire Executive Department in Trump’s image:
“The plan is called Project 2025—a transition project started long in advance this time, with the explicit purpose of making the entire government beholden to Trump’s every whim. “There is no way to make the existing structure function in a conservative manner. It’s not enough to get the personnel right. What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul,” said McEntee. “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” said Trump’s former Office of Management chief Russell T. Vought. Institutional support comes from the Heritage Foundation; its president Kevin D. Roberts said: “The notion of independent federal agencies or federal employees who don’t answer to the president violates the very foundation of our democratic republic.””
As David Frum put it, “If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”
@Moosebreath:
“If the President isn’t a de facto emperor, democracy is dead!” What idiocy.
@Moosebreath:
Not just Trump, not just Heritage – places like Claremont also.
This does not go away with Trump either, e.g. you would get pretty much the same from DeSantis.
@charontwo:
Joyce sounds like one of those cops who falsely arrest or detain someone and get upset about being threatened by someone weaponizing the 1st amendment when they get sued and their misconduct is shown to the public
If you or I behaved like this we’d be remanded into custody without bail pending our trial
DNFTT
@Tony W: What happened to the bail reform talking point that bail is to make sure the accused shows up for trial not to punish the accused.
@charontwo: It’s ok if you do it proper
Considering that high school kids have been in trouble with the law with ill advised commentary on Facebook, I don’t see any barriers for hauling in grown ass adults for the same thing.
@Moosebreath: The Koch’s and their fellow travelers set out in the 80s to figure out how to govern with a minority of the electorate. Or failing that, prevent the majority from governing. They’ve had huge success. They funded the 2010 REDMAP plan that created the current gerrymandered state legislatures. They astroturfed the Federalist Society which now controls the Supremes. They’re probably behind a lot of the expansion of the filibuster and extreme use of holds and blue slips. They own ALEC which has written a lot of state legislation. They owned Scott Walker and Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence. They orchestrated replacing Christie with Pence to head transition planning, seeding the Trump administration with Koch loyalists. They probably fund a lot of the “think” tanks and activists making a living planning this “unitary executive” autocracy. They’ve been so successful in creating and protecting the dark money system, nobody knows for sure who’s funding what.
Trump doesn’t appear to be owned by the Billionaire Boys Club. He’s sort of like the Mule in the Foundation Trilogy, came out of nowhere and blindsided everybody. And on its face, they’re opposing him this cycle, as they were in 2016. But as in 2016, if he looks to be the nominee, they’ll come around to his side. They may not be able to control him, but they have enough money to nudge him pretty effectively.
@Paul L.:
You know that true threats are not protected by the 1A, don’t you? And that such threats – especially when employed to intimidate jurors, prosecutors, and judges – can be prosecuted under state and federal criminal laws? And that we generally don’t like it when people out on bail engage in ongoing criminality?
More interestingly, though, (and as was asked previously), what do you think of Pence’s claims that Trump wanted him “to reject votes, return votes, essentially to overturn the election?”
Or will we be getting silence (as usual) because are you simply too cowardly to answer any substantive questions?
Jack Smith has asked for a protective order.
@Paul L.:
It still holds. Trump shouldn’t be placed in pretrial detention for this. At least not yet. And given all the context I can’t imagine that this would lead to this from a Federal judge. I could see a restriction to stay off social media, but I suspect (as much as his Legal staff would secretly prefer it) that would be jumping the gun. We’ll see Monday.
And most bail reformers for leave room for options to escalate pre-trial restrictions up to incarceration for violation of conditions of release.
Yep, the ‘Unitary Executive.’ Free up the president to fire any civil servant he or she so chooses for no reason whatsoever and put place movement radical conservatives.
And … don’t kid yourselves, at least 74 million voters believe that every Republican president should have those powers. It’s a selective authoritarianism to be sure, I mean those 74 million don’t want ANY Democratic president to have that power.
@CSK:
Judge Chutkan has given Team Trump till 5 p.m. Monday to respond to the request for a protective order.
Monday’s gonna be a busy day for Trump since he’ll be arraigned in Georgia, too.
Time to do some more serious research about where to emigrate to if America goes another few percent deplorable…
Haul his ass into court and make him explain to the judge how this isn’t a threat and doesn’t violate the terms of his pre trial release. Repeat forever, or until everyone gets tired of it and then just toss him into jail when he repeatedly refuses to comply with the terms of his release.
You know, treat him like anyone else.
@Gustopher: I don’t want him treated like anyone else, I want him treated like the treasonous SOB that he is. I’m just gonna have to wait a little while longer for that.
@CSK:
Just to be clear, the protective order is about materials that are about to be turned over to the Defense. They are not seeking to prevent Trump from using social media. They are seeking to prevent him from publicly sharing information about the evidence being turned over.
Also, notably, they are also asking that, since Trump no longer has security clearance, that any sensitive Documents cannot be directly shared with him.
This speaks to how much Jack Smith is seeking to fast track this prosecution.
@Gustopher:
I keep seeing stuff about how he can’t go to jail because of his Secret Service protection. I can’t see Smith sending him to Leavenworth, maybe at most a short term in Club Fed. More likely house arrest. He’s old. He’s also white and rich.
But how do the various courts deal with violation of court orders without the threat of jail? Seems to me somebody should be ordering the SS to coordinate with the Bureau of Prisons, the DC Dep’t of Corrections, the Fulton County sheriff, and Rikers to come up with a protocol. Is the man supposed to be exempt from imprisonment because he’d have better protection against being raped than anyone else?
Imprisonment isn’t a credible threat unless there’s a realistic way to do it.
@Matt Bernius:
Yes, I know, but thanks for emphasizing it.
By the way, what do you think the chances are that Trump will blab his way into jail before the trial begins?
@gVOR10: I don’t expect him to ever spend a day in jail or prison. He’ll get house arrest (NOT one of his golf clubs). If they are smart they will bar him from any and all social media, limit his phone usage to what he might get in prison, visitation the same, and TV will be limited to Mr Rogers and Sesame Street reruns 24/7.
TeamTrump has asked for a 3 day delay in responding to Jack Smith’s protective order.
@CSK:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23898624-11-trump-mt-delay
@gVOR10:
If we can hold Charles Manson, Timothy McVeigh and Martha Stewart, we can hold Donald Trump.
And for short contempt of court stays, I think solitary confinement would be fine. Secret Service can be posted outside to make sure he doesn’t Epstein himself.
We are not supposed to be sentencing people to 3-5 years of forced sodomy anyway, so I don’t see how that matters.
@gVOR10:
In Peru they have so many high office holders imprisoned, that they built a special propose jail
@CSK:
https://nitter.net/Brandi_Buchman/status/1687913447386746881
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23898650-govt-opposition-to-trump-motion-for-extension
@charontwo:
Well, it is true that asking Trump to read 5 page document is asking rather a lot of him.
@One American:
Wow! That’s huge if true. I’m sure it’s well reported and easily discoverable what crimes Joe Biden participated in. Right?
I tried googling it and couldn’t seem to find anything about actual crimes. Which I think is pretty strange, but who knows maybe I got the search terms wrong or something.
So could you provide some links that lay out those specific charges?
@One American:
What do you think, guys? Russian, or generative AI? Or both?
@Kathy: That is a thing of beauty.
@charontwo:
Yup. The problem is the Republican Party itself. The solution is for voters to throw the whole GQP away.
@OzarkHillbilly: Shouldn’t we just go ahead and say out right that we want him treated like a nKKKLAAAANNNNGGG for the sake of honesty if nothing else?
@Gustopher:
Wait a second…
Are you saying that it would be wrong for some disinterested third party to be paying Bruno to forcefully sodomize Trump daily? What kind of a sh!t-hole country are we living in, anyway?
@DrDaveT:
The latter. AI is designed to imitate its makers. Naturally wingnut AI would then speak out of its ass.
@One American: How does “if you come after me, I’m going to come after you” expose any communists? Or Biden crime families?
That’s a less sensible interpretation than saying that “come” in his statement means “ejaculate” (an interpretation that, sadly, I have not seen someone attempt to make, so I guess it’s up to me — he’s not threatening anyone, he’s bragging about his virility and ability to more rounds than anyone else on earth)
——
One American is clearly 6 Russians, right?
Trump is accusing “Liddle Mike Pence” of being delusional and a liar.
Isn’t that witness tampering?
@One American: How odd that Trump would want to expose all the communist who cheer on these indictments that immediately follow the Biden crime family being exposed.
Goo-goo maga
Judge Chutkan denied Team Trump’s request for a delay in responding to Jack Smith’s request for a protective order.
https://nitter.net/MikeSington/status/1687945294502416384
https://nitter.net/OurShallowState/status/1687952405651218432
ETA:
https://nitter.net/petestrzok/status/1687960122708934656
@charontwo:
Yup. I asked here @CSK: if this wasn’t witness tampering. Or witness intimidation.
https://edroso.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-charles-manson
BTW, this is totally on topic.
ETA:
https://alicublog.blogspot.com/2023/08/my-client-cant-possibly-get-fair-trial.html
@charontwo: Awesome. Thanks for that.
@One American: advice for the new dezinformatsia player, try to use ChatGPT to step up fluidity of language use, as really “all the communist” is so very clumsy and sub-literate one comes off either as a sub-literate troll with poor English or a non-English fluent troll. Does rather spoil the effect.
@DK: the “solution” to convert all the non-true-believers to the true belief. Very practical, assuredly not a completely empty idiocy.
https://www.meidastouch.com/news/very-sweaty-and-scared-trump-begs-senate-gop-for-help
More at the link.
https://nitter.net/magi_jay/status/1687879603585757184
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F2yNQsgXkAAcSMW?format=webp&name=small
Very different takes, with no video clip, how to know which is accurate?
https://nitter.net/patriottakes/status/1688005130652622848
@Lounsbury:
FWIW, @One American has been popping up for years to own us lib with their unique version of low energy trolling. SAD!
“In the end, they’re not after me, they’re after you; and I’m just in their way.”
I’ve seen these phrase thrown around a couple of times by different republicans (Matt Gaetz used it once) and always found it really, really corny. If I were at a progressive rally and a dem candidate said that I would give him a massive eye roll and head for the exits.
@Paine: I had the same reaction. On the other hand, if you can believe that Donald Trump is what we need to Make America Great Again, how hard is it to believe that the Dems want to forcibly gender convert your children into pedophile Satanists? The latter is a lot more plausible than the former…
What crosses me about this agenda is that it will complete the transformation of the GOP into a party designed for one thing: servicing Trump’s ego. They are not talking about anything other than punishing their enemies.
@DrDaveT:
First, let me say that there are no nirvanas, however that said ….
If I could get myself to be competent in Frence, I would seriously consider a number of cities in France; and with my German, Vienna is a place I could definitely live.
In Switzerland – maybe Lausanne or Vevey on Lake Geneva.
For English speaking places – Edinburgh, Melbourne, or Wellington NZ.
In Canada – Vancouver is a great city.