News
‘Their Is No System of Justice’: Trump Lashes Out at Judge Chutkan, Fani Willis, Letitia James in Wild Series of Rants
Donald Trump posted a lengthy series of angry rants Thursday afternoon all the way in to Friday morning, attacking U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and a top DOJ official, despite having been warned by Chutkan and having signed a pledge to not “intimidate or attempt to intimidate” an “officer of the court.”
As a condition of his release in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal prosecution of the ex-president on charges related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Trump signed a document called an “Advice of Penalties and Sanctions.” It makes clear Trump could be jailed if he violates the order.
“Violating any of the foregoing conditions of release may result in the immediate issuance of a warrant for your arrest, a revocation of your release, an order of detention, a forfeiture of any bond, and a prosecution for contempt of court and could result in imprisonment, a fine, or both,” it reads in part.
It also makes clear Trump cannot attempt to “obstruct a criminal investigation; tamper with a witness, victim, or informant; retaliate or attempt to retaliate against a witness, victim, or informant; or intimidate or attempt to intimidate a witness, victim, juror, informant, or officer of the court.”
Last week CBS News reported, “Trump could now face consequences for his online denunciations if they bump up against the agreed-upon conditions that allowed for his release before the trials begin. The restrictions in his two federal cases imposed by magistrate judges and the state case in Fulton County, Georgia, signed by a judge there warn against intimidating people involved in the matters, such as co-defendants, witnesses, jurors or officers of the court.”
“He is doing harm to himself by posting these messages,” former federal prosecutor Sarah Krissoff told CBS News. “Not only is he risking violations of these court orders and fines and even jail time because of that, he is risking the outcome of these criminal cases.”
Trump reposted many posts from far-right Fox News host Mark Levin, including one that says, “Jay Bratt, one of Jack Smith’s hitmen, is almost as sleazy as Smith,” and claims Bratt, who heads the DOJ’s counterintelligence division, has been accused of “extortion” and “pushing for the warrant and SWAT team attack on Mar-a-Largo.” Levin also asks if it’s time for House Republican Oversight Committee Chair Jim Comer “or somebody” to “issue a subpoena to get this hitman’s testimony?”
Trump also reposted a post from Levin that calls Judge Chutkan, “Another judge from a Marxist family,” and links to a New York Post article that calls the jurist a “scion of Marxist revolutionaries.”
Trump also reposted a Levin post that reads: “We have a fraud dressed up as a judge in Washington D.C. who is a radical Obama hack.”
Promoting his interview with Levin, Trump wrote at 3:02 AM Friday, “I am being ‘railroaded’ by a highly partisan and corrupt system of INJUSTICE, headed up by an opponent who is losing in the polls and, simultaneously with all of this, destroying our once Great Country!”
At 3:09 AM Friday, Trump lashed out: “Keep Indicting your Political Opponent, it makes no difference for what, or why. Keep him off the ‘campaign trail’ and in the courthouse instead. Don’t think of his Rights, the Constitution, or Liberty. Sit back and WATCH AMERICA CRUMBLE!”
Trump reposted still another Levin post that likens “the judiciary in DC” to “Joseph Stalin,” and claims the “cabal of Obama-Clinton-Biden judges is destroying our judicial system, electoral system, legal system, and constitutional system.”
In reposting another Levin post, Trump wrote, “But their is no system of justice,” misspelling “there.”
“Our Court System is rigged against me!” he added.
Friday morning Trump also posted several highly-edited videos attacking NY Attorney General Letitia James, who is suing Trump in a $250 million civil suit alleging widespread fraud. This week she asked a judge for a partial summary judgment, and “cited what she called a ‘mountain of undisputed evidence’ of false and misleading financial statements over the course of a decade,” CNBC reported.
Along with those videos attacking James, Trump posted an all-caps rant that alleges in what he called the “NYS A.G. Letitia James case,” that he “was targeted, given no jury, no extensions, no commercial division, no constitutional rights, no anything!”
“The Democrat judge hates Trump with a passion,” he also claimed, while alleging he was “defamed” by New York State.
Trump posted a link to an article from the right-wing Daily Signal, which is owned by The Heritage Foundation, that claims Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should have been barred from prosecuting Trump.
Late Friday afternoon in a fundraising pitch he wrote, “Is there anyone on the Planet that doesn’t know what I look like? And yet, for some reason, the Communist Democrats in Atlanta made a Mug Shot of me!”
In the video from that post Trump railed against what he called “election interference,” and used a profane term to describe the multiple lawsuits against him. At the end he held up a tee shirt emblazoned with his mug shot.
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.
“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.
“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.
READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’
Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.
On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”
On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”
After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:
“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.
“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”
READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’
Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.
Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.
But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”
RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’
“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.
“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.
SCOTUS Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “If the president … orders someone to assassinate [a rival], is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?”
Trump attorney D. John Sauer: “It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act.” pic.twitter.com/RddEEYIUrR
— The Recount (@therecount) April 25, 2024
Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”
The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.
“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.
RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.
“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.
“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”
Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”
CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”
Watch the video above or at this link.
READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns
Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.
“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”
The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”
Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”
READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act
Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”
Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”
“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”
NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”
Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.
During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”
READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment
Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”
But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.
“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”
Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward.
It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.⬇️ pic.twitter.com/F3qXi47ZT6
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) April 25, 2024
NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”
The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”
Watch the video above or at this link.
READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks
Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’
President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off
CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial
‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’
Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’
OPINION3 days agoPresident Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off
OPINION3 days agoNoem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’
News3 days agoCNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial