 So, Donald Trump had a very interesting weekend following his indictment last week. He attacked the prosecutor, the judge, a key witness, and he did all of this knowing that he is not allowed to do that. Because during his arraignment last week, he agreed to very specific terms for his release. Quote, under oath, Trump swore that he would not attempt to influence or intimidate witnesses, retaliate against anyone, or in any other way attempt to obstruct the administration of justice. The magistrate judge asked, are you prepared to comply? Trump simply responded, yes. Now, he was explicitly told, should he violate these terms, he could be jailed until his trial, which is set to take place in May of 2024. That's a lot of months in jail. But do you want to know what this silly bitch did almost immediately after he was arraigned? All of that. All the things that could land him in jail. First and foremost, influencing and intimidating witnesses could get him taken into custody. Mike Pence is a key witness, but he's also a political rival. So he's technically fair game if Trump wanted to attack him on, say, policy. But Trump did not attack him on policy. He specifically attacked him over this case, writing on TruthSocial, quote, Wow, it finally happened. Little Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as governor of Indiana until I came along and made him VP, has gone to the dark side and never told a newly emboldened Pence to put me above the Constitution, or that Mike was, quote, too honest. He's delusional. And now he wants to show he's a tough guy. I once read a major magazine article on Mike. It said he was not a very good person. I was surprised. But that article is right. Sad. This man did not read a fucking article. Now that was in response to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that Mike Pence wrote, where he claimed that Trump told him he was too honest because he wouldn't overturn the 2020 election. But obviously the intent here with this tweet is to influence and intimidate Mike Pence, who said he would comply if he was compelled to testify. And Trump responded to criticism over his attack on Mike Pence by doubling down and not only reposting his attack, but also adding, quote, I never said anything bad or even slightly inappropriate to Little Mike Pence. What I did do was make him, over the many people who wanted it, Vice President of the United States. Disloyalty in politics is alive and well. Mega. Now, I shouldn't have to explain why calling somebody disloyal, who is potentially going to testify against you, is bad. That could be tantamount to him influencing and or intimidating the witnesses. But he did it anyway. But he didn't stop there, of course, because he ominously posted this threat on Truth Social, which reads, if you go after me, I'm coming after you. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna keep doing the Trump voice. Which prompted the Justice Department to request a protective order from Judge Tanya Shute Khan, who is presiding over the case, by the way, to prevent him from releasing information and evidence about the case. And as Common Dreams explains, Special Counsel Jack Smith said in the filing that a protection order was particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him according to the Hill. If the defendant were to begin issuing public posts using details or, for example, grand jury transcripts obtained in discovery here, it could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case, Smith continued. Now, this is a fairly common request in criminal trials, so it's not that abnormal. But the reason why it's necessary, particularly because of this case, is because prosecutors are going to soon turn over sensitive information and evidence to Trump's legal team, and they don't want him to share that because obviously that could affect the case, given the high profile nature of this case. And he is already tweeting about the trial. So odds are he's going to use that new information that he gets from prosecutors to sway public opinion or possibly even obstruct justice. So the protective order is obviously necessary for a fair trial, but it likely scared Trump's team shitless because they actually addressed his tweet that prompted this request in a statement saying, quote, the truth social post cited is the definition of political speech and was in response to the rhino China-loving dishonest special interest groups and super PACs like the ones funded by the Koch brothers and club for no growth. Sure. And I love how even when he's not drafting the response, presumably, they still have to word it like him to sound extra stupid. But to be fair, he does have plausible deniability since he is running an election and didn't name anyone specifically. But still, the order is necessary since he's demonstrated time and again that he is incapable of shutting up about his own legal matters. Now, Judge Chut Khan gave Trump's team until Monday at 5 p.m. to explain why there shouldn't be a protective order and in response, Trump's team requested on Saturday to extend the deadline of that. But that request was subsequently denied by the judge. He then tweeted about it on truth social, saying, No, I shouldn't have a protective order placed on me because it would impinge upon my right to free speech deranged Jack Smith and the Department of Injustice should, however, because they are illegally leaking all over the place. Yeah. So you saw him attack Jack Smith. And that wasn't all that he said about the prosecutor in this case. Let's listen. Every poll. We're kicking Biden's ass. And that's the problem. That's the problem. And if I wasn't, if I wasn't. We wouldn't be under investigation by deranged Jack Smith. He's a deranged human being. You take a look at that face. You say that guy is a sick man. There's something wrong with it. I wish somebody said, why don't you be nice to him? I said, wouldn't matter, wouldn't matter. This guy's a maniac. They gave me a maniac. They gave him the nicest man in the world. You know, the boxes hooks, right? The boxes hook. This guy's got 1,850 boxes. Lindsey, he's got boxes and even though it's Trump, it's still wild to see him just straight up attack the prosecutor publicly. But also he attacked the judge as well, writing on truth social. There is no way I can get a fair trial with the judge assigned to the ridiculous freedom of speech slash fair elections case. Everybody knows this and so does she. We will be immediately asking for recusal of this judge on very powerful grounds and likewise for venue change out of DC. I don't know if anyone has ever told Trump that shutting the fuck up is free. Somebody should tell him, like if I were his kid, I would just take his phone away from him because he keeps digging and he won't stop. He's incapable of shutting the fuck up and it is wild to see. Now listen, to be fair, if I were him, I'd also want a different judge too because this judge has a history of not going easy on insurrectionists and she should not. But you don't announce this request in a public attack on the judge where you question her impartiality because if your request is denied obviously then you're kind of pissing off the judge who's gonna be overseeing your case. So all of the things that he's doing here, I mean, again, it's Trump so it's not surprising but here's the thing. If this were a normal person, he would not be able to do this and we all know this, everybody knows it and a lawyer named Andrew Wiseman on MSNBC confirmed that any other person would already be taken into custody but because it's Trump, it's not gonna happen but let's listen. Donald Trump under oath swore that he would not retaliate against or threaten any potential witness and then the next day that post and others with respect to Mike Pence were issued. So what can the judge do? Well, the judge can start by bringing the parties in and giving a sort of stern lecture. This is, you have an admonition that you have one more chance. The other thing that the judge can do because remember, Donald Trump is out on bail. So he is not free to say anything that anyone else would is there can be restrictions on what he did and what he can do. This did happen with Roger Stone in this very same courthouse when he posted a photo of the district judge with crosshairs over her shoulder and that led to severe restrictions on what he could post. Just to be clear, any other defendant who did this who was facing six counts of obstruction of justice for in DC, two in Florida, I think would be remanded meaning would be sent to jail and would have to await trial in jail. Yeah, but since he is who he is, he gets special treatment even though a normal working class person would never have this much leeway. I mean, imagine you were in Trump's predicament but in much minimal circumstances where you were facing a criminal trial, would you attack the prosecutor, the judge, talk about witnesses publicly? Of course you wouldn't because you're not an idiot but Donald Trump is both an idiot and has lots of power and he knows that that is going to protect him. Now, if you think that he's unhinged now just wait until he is indicted again because guess what, it's entirely possible if not likely that Trump is going to be indicted by Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis in Georgia and the reason why people think that another indictment is likely is because they've concluded their investigation and sidewalks have been blocked off, roads near the court have been closed in anticipation of an announcement and that case also has to do with his interference in the 2020 election into Georgia. And since we're talking about the fourth indictment, I've got to say that the legal argument from Trump's attorney is laughably weak and I'm no attorney when I can see that they clearly have nothing. And I mean, if you were Trump's attorney, I don't even know how you would try to defend him, how you'd spin it. But I do know I'd come up with something better than this, even if there's not much to work with. But let's listen to his interview with Chuck Taw and meet the press. The ballots are corrupt and you're going to find that they are, which is totally illegal. It's more illegal for you than it is for them because you know what they did and you're not reporting it. That's a criminal offense. All I want to do is this, I just want to find 11,700 people and 80 votes, which is one more that we have because we won the state. If he had proof he won the state, why did he threaten the secretary of state with a criminal charge? That wasn't a threat at all. What he was asking for is for Raffensperger to get to the truth. He believed that there were in excess of 10,000 votes that were counted illegally. What he was asking for is the secretary of state to act appropriately and find these votes that were counted illegally. Hold on one second. That was an aspirational ask. He's entitled to petition, even state government. But that doesn't involve an obstruction of federal government. What the Biden administration has said is somehow President Trump obstructed a federal proceeding. That relates to what was going on in the states and President Trump had every right to ask the secretary of state, I believe that this election was conducted improperly. There are deficiencies here. I want to see if there are more than 10,000 votes or whatever the number was that were counted illegally. Once again, that's core political speech. Listen, you don't have to be an attorney to see that that argument is incredibly weak. It's an aspirational request to find votes to steal the election, really? I mean, that request to Brad Raffensperker didn't take place in a vacuum. There's other evidence, there's other things that he did to steal the election. And as Salon puts it, legal observers are explaining that that argument is so terrible, they have to know. Trump's legal team has to know that they're gonna lose because I mean, what else is there to say though, honestly, right? I mean, again, everything that he did was very obvious. It was intentional and he did it with corrupt intent. So what defense are they going to make? I mean, it's pretty obvious that he's guilty. But again, I hate to stress this again because I do this every single time we talk about Trump's legal woes, but Trump is the leading candidate in the Republican presidential primary and he could very well defeat Biden in 2024. The most recent polls conducted at the end of July and beginning of August have them statistically tied. So this election cycle is going to be a wild, fucking ride because we have a candidate that could very well win the presidency after being convicted of a crime, if not numerous crimes, or even possibly being the winner from jail. Like, what happens in that instance? I mean, none of us really know, but we may find out very soon. So buckle up because the shit show that is American politics may have one of the most explosive series finales in election history. Blur! 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