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.