Donald Trump attacked Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting the former president, in a Truth Social post shortly after midnight. Trump’s attack described Smith as “deranged” and a “lowlife prosecutor” while denouncing the special counsel’s search warrant that gave the U.S. government access to Trump’s now-dormant Twitter account.
“How dare lowlife prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, break into my former Twitter account without informing me and, indeed, trying to completely hide this atrocity from me,” Trump wrote around 12:30 a.m. ET on Monday.
“What could he possibly find out that is not already known. Just like the early morning raid of Mar-a-Lago! Why isn’t the DOJ raiding Crooked Joe Biden, the most CORRUPT (and Incompetent!) President in the history of the United States?” Trump continued.
News first broke on August 9 that Trump’s old Twitter account had been of interest to the prosecutors who indicted the former president for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. It’s not immediately clear what Smith or his team have discovered while looking through Trump’s account that wasn’t already public. But there’s widespread speculation that perhaps Trump or his team were communicating through Twitter’s direct message system with co-conspirators.
Trump’s Twitter account was suspended on January 8, 2021, just two days after the insurrection, and was welcomed back in late 2022 after Elon Musk bought the site. But Trump hasn’t returned to the platform, instead opting to remain on Truth Social, a social media service he started in 2022 after he was banned from other major sites. Why is Trump staying on Truth Social? As I wrote last month, it’s almost certainly because he doesn’t want his social media microphone to be turned off during any new coup attempt.
Trump lost to Joe Biden, but tried to stay in power through a number of different means, according to the indictment, including Trump asking vice president Mike Pence not to certify the election. When Pence declined that unprecedented step, Trump took to social media, denouncing his own VP and staging a rally outside the White House on January 6, 2021. Trump instructed the mob to descend on the U.S. Capitol building in an effort to illegally stop the counting of the electoral votes, something that ultimately failed.
Trump has been indicted three times so far, twice in federal court, and one time in New York over an alleged hush money payment scheme to a former porn star. But Trump is expected to be indicted yet again as early as this week when a grand jury in Georgia meets to consider Trump’s efforts to pressure election officials in that state to “find” votes for him that didn’t exist. Trump was even captured on tape saying as much.
“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said on the phone call from January 2, 2021. Just a few days later, the insurrection at the Capitol would shock the world.
But that’s not the only evidence that’s likely to be presented in Georgia. Prosecutors reportedly have evidence that people associated with Trump hacked voting machines in the state, according to a bombshell new report from CNN.
Trump already attacked the judge presiding over his 2020 election conspiracy case, Tanya Chutkan, on Sunday, publishing a screenshot of a tweet with baseless allegations that she was engaging in politically motivated election interference. The Truth Social post also criticized Chutkan’s husband, a mafia-like tactic Trump often employs in an effort to intimidate people who he perceives as enemies.
Judge Chutkan issued a warning to Trump’s attorneys last Friday, declaring that she wouldn’t abide her courtroom turning into a “carnival atmosphere.” But given Trump’s long track record as a carnival barker, that was almost a foregone conclusion. The question now is whether Trump will face any consequences for his actions that are clearly intended to intimidate witnesses and prosecutors.
“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.
The prosecutors alerted the judge to that threat in a court filing just hours after it was made, according to Politico.
While it’s entirely possible Judge Chutkan could throw Trump in jail, there are other remedies she has at her disposal as a judge. For instance, prosecutors have asked for a January 2024 trial date, while Trump would like to stretch out the trial until after the November 2024 election. As a political commentator recently mentioned on NBC’s Meet the Press, the judge could simply move up the trial to happen as soon as possible. And that would be quite a move, considering Trump is potentially facing hundreds of years in prison.
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