Clear & Present Danger: Trump’s own words show focus on his perceived enemies

Fake indictment - when I win, I'm going after them

Astonishing article from the GUARDIAN from data collected on Trump vis-à-vis his threats and promises if elected – quite scary stuff with this headline (and formatted to fit the blog):

“Revenge: Analysis of Trump posts shows relentless focus on punishing his enemies”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) documents former president’s threats against perceived political opponents.

A major study of Trump’s Truth Social media posts has revealed the scale of his ambitions to target President Joe Biden, Federal Judges, and other perceived political enemies if he returns to power.

CREW is a highly respected D.C. watchdog organization that analyzed more than 13,000 messages published by Trump on his Truth Social platform, They found him vowing revenge, retaliation, and retribution against his foes.

Trump has threatened to use the federal government to go after Biden during a second Trump administration 25 times since the start of 2023, the study found. These threats include FBI raids, investigations, indictments, and even jail time.

He has also threatened or suggested that the FBI and DOJ should take action against Senators, Judges, members of the Biden family, and even non-governmental organizations (e.g., national media, et al).

Robert Maguire, VP for research and data at CREW said: “Trump is promising to go after what he perceives to be his political enemies. He is promising to essentially weaponize the government against anyone he sees as not sufficiently loyal, or who is openly opposed to him. He has constantly seeded this idea that the numerous charges against him are trumped-up charges and it seems almost to have given him license to openly say: You’ve done this to me, so I’m going to do it to you.”

Maguire also said: “His comments are often reported on or discussed as one-offs like: Trump said this today, and people talk about it and then it fades away because Trump said something else the next day, or the next week, or the next month. We figured it would be helpful to quantify these comments that he’s making to show this isn’t just a whim or a passing idea that he put out in the world because he saw somebody say something on TV. It’s a fixation of his, it’s a promise he’s making to use the government in ways that are squarely unethical.”

CREW duly analyzed more than 13,000 of Trump’s Truth Social posts from 1 January 2023 to 1 April 2024 and found that, while Trump has recently dialed down some of his more violent rhetoric, he remains fixated on threatening political opponents.

Its report, the first in a series, says his attitude can be summed up in one Truth Social post from August 2023: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!”

Indeed, last December Trump posted a word cloud based on his speeches: that word was “revenge.”

Many of his threats to Biden reflect Trump’s now familiar tactic of reversing charges against his opponents, conjuring a mirror world in which he claims they are guilty of the very offence of which he is accused.

In one post about the special counsel Jack Smith, he warned that there will be “repercussions far greater than anything that Biden or his Thugs could understand and, if the investigations continue, it will open a “Pandora’s Box” of retribution.”

In another post, Trump wrote that his federal indictments are “Setting a BAD precedent for yourself, Joe. The same can happen to you.”

In July last year Trump reposted rally coverage quoting him that “Now the gloves are off.”

Trump has explicitly threatened Biden with a special counsel investigation and indictment.

In one post he called on AG Merrick Garland, to “immediately end Special Counsel investigation into anything related to me because I did everything right, and appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Joe Biden who hates Biden as much as Jack Smith hates me.”

In another post Trump asked: “When will Joe Biden be indicted for his many crimes against our Nation?”

Trump has posted about this repeatedly, promising to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden, and indict him if Trump returns to the White House for a second term.

Trump has “re-Truthed” others’ posts about Biden that are even more ominous.

In June 2023, he reposted a clip from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) asserting: “Joe Biden shouldn’t just be impeached, he should be handcuffed and hauled out of the White House for his crimes.”

Trump also posted a screenshot of a different post saying the FBI should: “Raid all of Biden’s residences and seize anything they want, including his passports.”

Some posts announced plans for retribution against the specific lawyers, judges, and other officials whom Trump blames for his legal troubles. For example, two months before he was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, he reposted a call for the Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg, to be “put in jail.”

He also has reposted calls for S/C Jack Smith and others to be locked up and to “throw away the key.”

One re-Truth promised to charge the Fulton County GA DA Fani Willis, along with Bragg, Smith, AG Garland, and Biden, with conspiracy and racketeering. 

Trump has also made threats to non-profit organizations because of their work examples:

Last November he posted on Truth Social: “For any radical left charity, non-profit, or so called aid organizations supporting these caravans and illegal aliens, we will prosecute them for their participation in human trafficking, child smuggling, and every other crime we can find.”

CREW argues that the posts should not be taken as empty threats but as a wake-up call for Congress to erect meaningful guardrails against the weaponization of law enforcement agencies before it is too late.

Crew has called on Congress to pass the Protecting Our Democracy Act (PODA), which would curb abuses of power by presidents of any party, and to strengthen Congress’ ability to fulfil its constitutional role as a check on executive branch overreach. That bill legislation passed the House of Representatives in 2021 on a bipartisan basis but has languished in the Senate ever since.

Robert Maguire, VP for research and data at Crew concluded in his report saying: “It is critical in making sure that law enforcement and the DOJ – all of the things that that entails, both the federal prosecutors and the FBI – cannot be manipulated by the president to go after political enemies. That would go a long way to hamstringing any effort by any president, to be clear, to use those law enforcement powers to go against political enemies.”

My 2 Cents: I think the above article speaks volumes about the kind of person Trump truly and it underscores my belief that he must never be elected again.  

The outpouring of support for Kamala Harris as well from many respected Republicans also speaks volumes about the danger that Trump poses based on his own words as to the action he would take if he were to win in November – which I believe he will not. Stay tuned. 

Thanks for stopping by.