Predicting the future is no big deal when you are a time traveler like me. I wrote this Feb 12, 2020
How GOP's Vicious Threats Help Them Avoid Justice
"The Right Wing Media will target prosecutors and witnesses to destroy their lives
'We don't have to tell the truth. The government can't stop us, it's against the 1st Amendment! We have an audience and will use it 24/7 to attack Democrats. We don't even need to be profitable anymore thanks to Dark Money!'"
Finally, the #PHSupremeCourt explicitly defined and explained what red-tagging is. Past decisions involving red-tagging cases did not give explicit definitions.
The decision publicized on Wednesday, May 8, said #RedTagging is the use of #threats and #intimidation to “discourage subversive activities,” adding that “whether such threats ripen into actual abduction or killing of supposed ‘reds’ is largely uncertain.” #Philippines#WritOfAmparo
From Kaitlan Collins
Notable moment in court today where the judge told the defense he could hear Trump cursing:
Judge Merchan: "I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that's contemptuous...I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don't want to embarrass him."
A #juror was quickly dismissed at the start. She was among the 7 already selected, she said she was very worried that despite the fact the court ruled to keep jurors’ name secret, she would still be exposed & targeted.
It’s probably safe to say that few, if any, judges have had to deal w/the array of #threats to #their trial that Justice #Merchan has had to. Besides #Trump himself, who constantly tests the boundaries of his #GagOrder, there are his allies who attacking the judge & his family & who aren’t covered by the gag order. Then there’s the #media who has been putting potentially identifying info about prospective #jurors on TV.
The threats from #Trump & #MAGA keep coming. Starting this week it will be directed at the jurors.
Local, state & fed law enforcement KNOW who the jurors are, they MUST be prepared for threats against them.
Their phones & social media accounts should be monitored NOW. There must be a coordinated response to find & arrest those making threats.
I predicted this 4/23 & what SHOULD be done. To NOT do so is a failure to protect them. #TrumpTrial#JurySelection#Threats
I tweeted to Lisa Rubin
"I'm worried that the information given about prospective jurors will make them easy for Trump supporters to find them & threaten them. Could you talk about how Law Enforcement prepares for them getting discovered & being threatened? Does it then become jury tampering?"
Monday I want to see arrests of people who've been threatening witnesses, judges, prosecutors & their families on behalf of #Trump.
I want to see mugshots & read indictments for true threats made via voicemail, email, & on ANY social media, TS, Gab, Patriot. Win, X, or Rumble.
"The Republicans already know they can’t win in November playing by the rules. Not even with the twisted mathematical formula that is the Electoral College. They have no policies, their leading candidate is a convicted rapist and con man facing 88 criminal charges and four court cases - one of them coming up in a matter of weeks - who is quite clearly losing his faculties."
"Furthermore, the Republican assault on abortion rights is not only massively unpopular across the country but it has galvanized the Democratic opposition in a way not seen in American politics since…I dunno. Long damned time.
Which leaves them with violence and intimidation as two of the biggest weapons in their arsenal to win in November by any means necessary."
Trump’s attacks also come amid growing concerns about the #safety of federal #judges. Reuters found that #threats against fed judges have more than doubled since late 2020, when #Trump significantly increased his criticism of the #judiciary.
In #Georgia, #FultonCounty Superior Court Judge Scott #McAfee, who is presiding over a #Trump#criminal case involving allegations related to overturning the 2020 election results, has also faced #threats, including a #swatting incident at his #Atlanta-area home in Jan. A spox for the responding local PD said the investigation had been turned over to the #FBI.
Pointing to a tweet Ohio right-wing Senate candidate Josh Mandel has just made featuring a MAGA hat and a gun, Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes,
"Perhaps it was always going to come down to this. A MAGA hat and a gun. Two emblems of Trumpism, a movement fueled by capitalist glamour and thuggery, the former providing cover for the latter, as in this tableau."
"Trump’s accelerating assaults on our security and on common decency represent a five-alarm fire. In such moments, first responders do not panic. They put on their fire coats and pants, hop on their trucks, and hose down the danger.
That’s our job now. No time for fear or succumbing to panic. Only time for steely gaze and firm commitment to combat the threat to our peace, our law, our order, and our freedom."
The Nation is witnessing the determined delegitimization of both its Federal and State judiciaries and the systematic dismantling of its system of justice and Rule of Law by a single man
– the former President of the United States.
In the months ahead, the former president can only be expected to ramp up his unprecedented efforts to #delegitimize the courts of the United States, the nation’s state courts, and America’s system of justice, through his vicious, disgraceful, and unforgiveable #attacks and #threats on the Federal and State Judiciaries and the individual Judges of these courts.
Never in American history has any person, let alone a President of the United States, leveled such threatening attacks against the federal and state courts and federal and state judicial officers of the kind the former president has leveled continually now for years.
#Republican-appointed judges raise alarm over #Trump attacks on #law
Federal DC Judge #ReggieWalton warned Trump’s attacks on #HushMoney trial judge & others could lead to #violence.
The Republican-appointed judge denounced Trump’s attacks against the judge presiding over his hush money trial in Manhattan & his daughter, calling them assaults on the #RuleOfLaw that could lead to violence & #tyranny.
Since late 2020, as #Trump began escalating his #attacks on the #judiciary, serious investigated #threats against fed #judges have more than doubled, from 224 in 2021 to 457 in 2023, acc/to the US Marshals Service. Fed judges in DC say ≥½ of trial judges handling cases arising from the #Jan6, attack on the Capitol have received a surge in threats & #harassment, incl’g #DeathThreats to their homes, w/Trump’s #ElectionObstruction trial judge, Tanya #Chutkan, placed under 24-hr protection.
Please hear this important information about the case corrupt #scotus#WhiteChristianNationalist pushing harms Women. Remember, our body, our choice.
The group challenging #mifepristone’s access has NO legal standing to bring their challenge. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s lawyer, Erin Hawley, was questioned on how & why the group was even before the court. Erin is pro-nazi fascist, insurrectionist Josh Hawley's wife.
NY State Criminal Trial. Judge orders gag on criminal defendant in election interference, Hush money trial. Judge will be very ready to back it up when the criminal defendant violates the court order.
Judge says Trump does not deny his prior "threatening, inflammatory, [and] denigrating statements, as provided by the DA's office, that "risk impeding the orderly administration of this Court,"
Joshua Russell had pleaded guilty to a fed charge of making an interstate #threat against #Hobbs, a Dem who was AZ’s chief #elections officer in 2022 & is now the state’s gov.
Russell’s vms were among countless #threats against #Hobbs for her role in certifying #Biden’s 2020 presidential victory over #Trump in #Arizona & in the 2022 midterms. As SoS, Hobbs at times had 24hr #security bc of threats from Trump supporters who falsely claimed his loss was marred by fraud.
Russell’s case is brought by #DOJ’s #ElectionThreatsTaskForce, which focuses on threats of #violence against elected ofcls, workers & volunteers to ensure they can oversee #elections free of #harassment.
Earlier this month, a #Massachusetts man was sentenced to 3½yrs in #prison for making a #threat to bomb #Hobbs’ office in Feb 2021 when she was still the SoS.
In Feb, an #Alabama man accused of sending #DeathThreats to a social media account for the #MaricopaCounty#Elections Dept was charged w/making interstate #threats.
& an #Iowa man was sentenced to 2½yrs in prison for his conviction for threatening Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman & AZ AG Mark Brnovich, both #Republicans.
…In a doc written by Russell & submitted to the court, Russell described his situation at the time he made the #threats, saying he was depressed & angry & that his drug use fueled his isolation.
“All I did was hide in bed all day scrolling thru #socialmedia & #political forums – looking at blogs or anything that could serve as an outlet for my pent up #anger…,” Russell wrote.