One of the most frustrating things about Donald Trump is the fact that despite being what U.S. penal code 212(j)(1)(j) defines as “a hugely corrupt motherf--ker,” for most of his 75 years on earth, he’s escaped any and all responsibility for his actions. Oh, sure, he’s paid some money here and there to make things that would be a huge deal for anyone else a footnote in his biography, and yeah, he did agree to have his charity shut down after it was accused by the New York attorney general of “persistently illegal conduct,” but largely, the guy has gotten away with everything, from attempting to extort another country for his own political gain to lying to the public about the severity of a highly contagious disease to inciting an insurrection that left five people dead and then “gleefully” watching it on TV like it was a pay-per-view boxing match he and his son did the commentary for. And yet! As investigations into the ex-president ramp up, it appears his run of luck may be coming to an end, a prediction we‘re basing solely on the fact that he sounds like he knows the walls are closing in.
Yes, over the course of a characteristically unhinged rally on Saturday night, during which he painted an alarming picture in which he (1) is reelected to the White House in 2024 and (2) pardons the people who violently attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump took the time to lash out at a trio of prosecutors investigating him for a smorgasbord of alleged wrongdoing. In what CNN has called “an extraordinary assault,” the ex-president went on an extended attack against New York attorney general Letitia James and Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, later throwing in Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis for good measure. Without mentioning any of the investigators by name, Trump told the crowd: “These prosecutors are vicious, horrible people, they’re racists and they’re very sick, they’re mentally sick. They’re going after me without any protection of my rights by the Supreme Court, or most other courts. In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you. And I just happen to be the person that’s in the way. That’s what they’re after, it’s been going on for years.”
He continued:
“For years they’ve been going after my company, many years, using every trick in the book in an attempt to literally, if they can, put me in jail, they want to put me in jail. This has been going on since I came down the escalator with our great future first lady who everybody loves…local prosecutors in New York and other locations who horribly campaigned for office on ‘We’re going to get Trump…we’re gonna get him,’ then got elected and are working overtime to fulfill their campaign promises. They’ve subpoenaed more than 9 million pages—big company—of documents of virtually every deal I’ve ever done hoping to find a mistake, an error, misspelled words, a comma out of place, or anything else that they can find that might be just a little bit wrong. We relied on major law firms and accounting firms and other professionals to do this work and to the best of my knowledge they did it very, very well. As an example, the attorney general of New York has hundreds of venomous quotes about me during her campaign. The district attorney of Manhattan, where crime death and killings are rampant like never before has happily stated that ‘I have sued Trump more than any other person alive, more than 100 times.’ Then he gets elected to take over the former attorney general’s job and he’s been after my family for years but unable to find anything, they haven’t been able to fine anything other than a fringe benefits case. And accountants will tell you, fringe benefits cases are not criminal cases, there’s never been that they know of a fringe benefits case. There’s never been a witch hunt or a fishing expedition like this, there’s never been anything like it…. This has been going on as long as you’ve known me and it will continue as long as I’m leading in the polls...If these radical racist vicious prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta, and elsewhere.”
There’s a lot going on here. Let’s start with the fact that it’s really quite something to watch Trump, an abject racist, accuse three Black prosecutors of racism against him. But mostly, Trump’s fevered performance suggests that he’s completely terrified of the consequences that might be coming for him. If you haven’t been keeping up with the various developments across all of the investigations into the ex-president, as a reminder, Letitia James has been looking into alleged wrongdoing by the Trump Organization for more than two years, and earlier this month, said in a court filing that her office had found “significant evidence” of fraud committed by the family business. Announcing legal action against them, James said in a statement that “Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump have all been closely involved in the transactions in question, so we won’t tolerate their attempts to evade testifying in this investigation,” a turn of events that the ex-president flipped out over, suggesting that his “children” should be off limits despite the fact that they are in their 40s and have both been senior executives at the Trump Organization, including during the time being examined by James.
As for Trump’s claims during the rally in regards to James’s investigation, it may not surprise you to learn they’re extremely Trumpian in that they’re total bullshit. For example, when he speaks of the millions of pages of documents the Trump Organization has turned over, he conveniently leaves out the fact that, per James, the company has not “made anything approaching a complete production of documents for Mr. Trump,“ including the handwritten notes the famously email and computer-averse Trump used to “communicate with employees.” When he talks about it supposedly being improper for James to have campaigned on holding him accountable, he does not mention that approximately 63% of his 2016 campaign was about locking Hillary Clinton up (the other 37% arguably being about racism and making Mexico pay for the wall).
Meanwhile, in an incredible tell that Trump is soiling himself over what might come out of James’s investigation, he already appears to be offering himself an out by suggesting that he “relied on” other people, namely, “major law firms and accounting firms and other professionals.” (Incidentally, this preemptive deflection of blame is reminiscent of the statement Trump’s lawyer gave to The New York Times after it uncovered evidence of “outright fraud” by the then president and his siblings, in which his attorney said: “There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which the Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate. President Trump had virtually no involvement whatsoever with these matters. The affairs were handled by other Trump family members who were not experts themselves and therefore relied entirely upon the aforementioned licensed professionals to ensure full compliance with the law.” In other words, “there was no fraud or tax evasion,” but just in case there actually was, Donald Trump is completely innocent and the licensed professionals he paid and/or his siblings are to blame.)
In the case of the Manhattan D.A., which charged the Trump Organization and its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, with numerous crimes last summer, including conspiracy, grand larceny, and multiple counts of tax fraud and falsifying records, it’s more than a little sad that the best Trump can do six months later is claim that allegedly dodging taxes on $1.7 million worth of perks is not a big deal, though at least the family is consistent. (Both Weisselberg and the Trump Organization have pleaded not guilty.)
And while Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis only got a passing mention, the part of the speech where she was included was probably the most chilling—and the one that most suggests Trump is terrified of what might happen to him. Because telling one’s followers “if these radical racist vicious prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protest we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta, and elsewhere” can’t really be viewed as some throwaway line. Remember what happened the last time Trump told a group of his followers that he had been wronged and that they should fight on his behalf? Unsurprisingly, Willis is viewing Trump’s statement like the threat it is.
Per CNN:
The Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney is asking for the FBI’s help in providing security for buildings and staff one day after former President Donald Trump called prosecutors investigating him “racists” and said his supporters should hold “the biggest protests we have ever had” in cities like Atlanta if the prosecutors “do anything wrong or illegal.”
In a letter to J.C. Hacker, FBI special agent in charge of the Atlanta field office, Willis asked for a risk assessment of buildings surrounding her office and the courthouse where [a special] grand jury [she is convening to investigate Trump’s attempts overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia] will sit. She also asked for FBI agents to provide security, saying “security concerns were escalated this weekend” by Trump’s rhetoric. Willis said her office had already received communications from people unhappy with the investigation before Trump’s rally.
“I am asking that you immediately conduct a risk assessment of the Fulton County Courthouse and Government Center, and that you provide protective resources to include intelligence and federal agents,” Willis said in the letter to Hacker, obtained by CNN. “It is imperative that these resources are in place well in advance of the convening of the Special Purpose Grand Jury.” She added, in case the subtext of Trump’s threat was unclear: “We must work together to keep the public safe and ensure that we do not have a tragedy in Atlanta similar to what happened at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
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