Artist’s rendering of former president Donald Trump in the center, having a discussion with his defense lawyer … [+]
Donald Trump, shortly after midnight, attacked Jack Smith in a Truth Social posting. Smith is the Special Counsel prosecuting former President George W. Bush. 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 Monday.
“What could he possibly find out that is not already known. Like the Mar-a-Lago raid in the morning! 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.
Donald Trump describes Jack Smith on Truth Social as “lowlife”.
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. Trump stays on Truth Social for what reason? 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.
According to the charges, Trump did not win the race against Joe Biden but he tried to remain in power by a variety of means. One was asking Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify his election. Pence turned down this unheard of step and Trump used social media to denounce his own Vice President. He also held a march outside the White House, on 6 January 2021. Trump ordered the mobs to descend upon the U.S. Capitol Building in order to stop illegally the count of electoral votes. This attempt failed.
Trump has already been indicted on three occasions, once in New York and twice in Federal Court, for an alleged scheme of hush-money payments to a pornstar. 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 even said it on tape.
“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. A few days later the Capitol insurrection would be shocking to the entire world.
But that’s not the only evidence that’s likely to be presented in Georgia. CNN’s explosive report claims that the prosecutors in Georgia have evidence of people linked to Trump hacking into voting machines.
Trump had already published a screenshot from a Sunday tweet that made baseless accusations about Tanya Chutkan’s involvement in political 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. It is now up to Trump whether he will be held accountable for the actions aimed at intimidating witnesses and prosecutors.
“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.
Politico reported that just hours after the threat was made, the prosecutor alerted a judge in court about it.
While it’s entirely possible Judge Chutkan could throw Trump in jail, there are other remedies she has at her disposal as a judge. Trump, for example, wants the case to be delayed until the end of November 2020. The prosecutors want a date in January 2024. 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. That would be a bold move considering Trump could face hundreds of years behind bars.
