On March 30, the following news report written by staff reporter Megan Lebowitz with NBC News was published by NBC news:
“Former President Donald Trump shared a video on social media Friday that included an image of President Joe Biden bound and restrained in the back of a pickup truck.
The 20-second video, which Trump indicated was taken Thursday in Long Island, New York, shows a truck emblazoned with “Trump 2024” and a large picture depicting Biden tied up and lying on his side.
Trump was in Long Island Thursday for the wake of fallen NYPD officer Jonathan Diller.
When reached for comment on the image in the video, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said, “That picture was on the back of a pick up truck that was traveling down the highway.” Cheung also accused “Democrats and crazed lunatics” of calling for violence against Trump and his family, arguing that “they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him.”
Cheung pointed to comments by Biden in 2018, before he declared his candidacy, when he said that if he and Trump were in high school he’d “take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him” if he heard him demeaning women.
Biden campaign spokesman Michael Tyler slammed Trump for posting the video.
“This image from Donald Trump is the type of crap you post when you’re calling for a bloodbath or when you tell the Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by,'” Tyler said in a statement. “Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it’s time people take him seriously — just ask the Capitol Police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6.”
The White House referred questions about the video to the campaign.
Trump has previously used violent imagery and rhetoric, both in his 2024 presidential campaign and before.
On March 16, he vowed that there would be a “bloodbath” if he was not re-elected, while speaking about the economy. Last year, before his numerous indictments, Trump warned about “potential death and destruction” if he were to be charged in the Manhattan district attorney’s hush money case against him.
He also shared an article on Truth Social that had an image of him with a baseball bat near Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s head. The post was deleted.
More recently, Trump used his Truth Social platform to go after Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the hush money case, as well as the judge’s daughter after being hit with a partial gag order.
Trump faces four criminal indictments for charges related to allegations of election interference, mishandling classified documents and falsifying business records related to hush money payments. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.”
The link to the quoted news story with photos is here:
GAG ORDERS ALREADY ISSUED
On March 26, New York Judge Juan M. Merchan issued a gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial, citing the former president’s history of “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” remarks about people involved in his legal cases. The decision echoed a gag order in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case. The decision came a day after he rejected the defense’s push to delay the Manhattan trial until summer and ordered it to begin April 15. Merchant wrote in his four-page decision:
“Given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount.”
The judge said the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s statements have induced fear and necessitated added security measures to protect his targets and investigate threats.
Trump’s lawyers fought the gag order, warning it would amount to unconstitutional and unlawful prior restraint on his free speech rights. Merchan, who had long resisted imposing a gag order, said his obligation to ensuring the integrity of the trial outweighed First Amendment concerns.
The gag order bars Trump from either making or directing other people to make public statements on his behalf about potential witnesses and jurors in the hush-money trial. It also prohibits any statements meant to interfere with or harass the court’s staff, prosecution team or their families.
At his arraignment, Merchan admonished Trump not to make statements that could incite violence or jeopardize safety, but stopped short of issuing a gag order. At a subsequent hearing, Merchan noted Trump’s “special” status as a former president and current candidate and said, “I’m bending over backwards and straining to make sure that he is given every opportunity possible to advance his candidacy and to be able to speak in furtherance of his candidacy.”
The gag order does not bar comments about Merchan, whom Trump has referred to after his arraignment last year as “a Trump-hating judge” with a family full of “Trump haters,” or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat. But it puts Trump on notice that attacks on key figures in the case, like his former lawyer-turned-nemesis Michael Cohen or porn star Stormy Daniels, won’t be tolerated. The gag order adds to existing restrictions that prohibit Trump from using evidence in the case to attack witnesses.
Now, with the gag order, Merchan is declaring scores of people involved in the case off-limits for Trump’s social media venom, courthouse diatribes and campaign rallies. Trump’s grousing to TV cameras as he entered and exited the courtroom became ritual during his New York civil fraud trial last year.
TRUMP AGAIN LASHES OUT AT COURT
On March 27, Trump lashed out at Judge Merchan judge who put him under a gag order ahead of his April 15 hush-money criminal trial, making a fallacious claim about his daughter and urging him to step aside from the case.
In a social media post, the former president suggested without evidence that Judge Juan M. Merchan was kowtowing to his daughter’s interests as a Democratic political consultant. He also made a claim, later repudiated by court officials, that she had posted a social media photo showing Trump behind bars.
Trump complained on his Truth Social platform that the gag order issued Tuesday was “illegal, un-American, unConstitutional.” He said that Merchan, a veteran Manhattan jurist, was “wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement” by Democratic rivals.
Trump claimed that Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, whose firm has worked on campaigns for President Joe Biden and other Democrats, had recently posted a photo on social media depicting her “obvious goal” of seeing him jailed.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-gag-order-hush-money-new-york-68317dee722581bfbde51c305788b614
GAG ORDERS UPHELD
A federal appeals court panel in December largely upheld Trump’s gag order in his Washington, D.C., election interference case but narrowed it by freeing him to criticize special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the case. The New York gag order echoed that ruling by excluding Bragg.
At the fraud trial, Trump was fined $15,000 for twice violating a gag order imposed after he made a disparaging social media post about the judge’s chief law clerk.
In January, a federal judge threatened Trump with expulsion from court in a civil trial on writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation claims against him after he was heard saying “it is a witch hunt” and “it really is a con job.”
TRUMP’S EXTENSIVE HISTORY OF INCITING VIOLENCE
Trump has and extensive history of inciting violence.
On January 23, 2016, Donald Trump said at a rally in Sioux Center that his supporters are so loyal that he would not lose backers even if he were to shoot someone in the middle of downtown Manhattan, New Yorke City and said:
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? … It’s, like, incredible.”
On February 21, 2016, Trump told a crowd of his supporters in Cedar Rapids that he would pay their legal fees if they engaged in violence against protesters and said this:
“If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously, OK? Just knock the hell out of them … I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise.”
http://time.com/4203094/donald-trump-hecklers/
On March 9, 2016, as a protester was being escorted out of a Trump rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the protester was sucker-punched by another attendee and Trump said nothing when it was brought to his attention.
At a Las Vegas campaign rally in March, 2016 Trump said security guards were too gentle with a protester and said “He’s walking out with big high-fives, smiling, laughing. … I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you.”
In yet another campaign rally in March, 2016 in Warren, Michigan, Trump said of a protester “Get him out. …Try not to hurt him. If you do, I’ll defend you in court. Don’t worry about it.”
In July 2017 during a speech to police officials, Trump encourage law enforcement officials to be more violent in handling arrested offenders when he said:
“When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just seen them thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice … When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head you know, the way you put their hand over [their head],” Trump continued, mimicking the motion. “Like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head. … You can take the hand away, OK?’”
During a rally in Montana ahead of the 2018 midterms, Trump praised Republican Greg Gianforte for body slamming a reporter while running for his congressional seat in 2017 and said “any guy who can do a body slam, he is my type!”
PIPE BOMBS SENT TO TRUMP CRITICS BY TRUMP SUPPORTER
In October, 2018, 14 pipe bombs were sent to Democrats who were outspoken critics of president Trump and people who he has vilified at his political rallies and on TWITTER.
The New York Times reported that on October 26, 2018 Federal authorities made an arrest in connection with the nationwide bombing campaign against outspoken Democratic critics of President Trump. The suspect was identified as Cesar Sayoc Jr., 56, of Aventura, Florida. Sayoc is a registered Republican, he has a lengthy criminal history in Florida dating back to 1991. Sayoc’s criminal record includes felony theft, drug and fraud charges, as well as being arrested and accused of threatening to use a bomb.
Pipe bombs were sent to the home addresses of:
Former President Barack Obama
Former Vice President Joe Biden
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Former United States Attorney General Eric Holder
Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John O. Brennan
California Congresswoman Maxine Waters
Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz
Billionaire philanthropist George Soros
Actor Robert Di Nero
A pipe bomb was also delivered to the offices of CNN in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
During his arrest, Sayvoc’s white van was also seized as evidence. The van’s windows were plastered with a thick collage of pro-Trump stickers. Photos of the van showed that one of the stickers depicted President Trump standing in front of flames and the American flag. Another was of Hillary Clinton’s face in the crosshairs of a rifle scope. A third said: “CNN SUCKS.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/nyregion/cnn-cory-booker-pipe-bombs-sent.html
Photos and video emerged of Sayvoc attending a February, 2017 Trump Rally in Melbourne, Florida. He was holding a placard reading “CNN SUCKS”. Social media posts maintained by Cesar Sayoc Jr., contain conspiratorial memes promoting President Trump and mocking, criticizing and threatening virtually every prominent Democrat he sent a pipe bomb.
One post involving former Attorney General Eric Holder appointed by President Obama said “See you real soon. Tick Tock”.
In a September TWEET to former Vice President Joe Biden he wrote: “Hug your beloved son, Niece, wife family real close every time U walk out your home.”
On Wednesday, October 24, 2018, after a briefing with FBI, DOJ, Homeland Security and Secret Service and during a subsequent White House function, President Trump had this to say about the “pipe bomber”:
“The safety of the American people is my highest and absolute priority. … The full weight of our government is being deployed to conduct and bring those responsible for these despicable acts to justice. We will spare no resources or expense in this effort. And I wanted to tell you that, in these times, we have to unify, we have to come together, and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message, that that acts or threats of political violence have no place in the United States of America.”
On Thursday, October 25, 2018, the very a day after CNN and Democrats were the targets of the pipe bombs, Trump in a TWEET blamed the media for much of the “anger” in society by saying:
“A very big part of the anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/25/politics/trump-blames-media-for-anger-after-attacks/index.html
JANUARY 6, 2020 CAPITAL RIOT
On the Morning of January 6, a defeated Donald Trump for reelection spoke to thousands of his upset and angry supporters in Washington, DC in front of the White House before the Congress was to schedule to accept the electoral college vote as mandated by the United States Constitution and electing Joe Biden President. As usual, Trump’s speech was inflammatory and full of lies. Trump told the crowd that the election had been “rigged” by “radical democrats” and the “fake news media” and he said in part:
“We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved. … Our country has had enough. We’re not going to take it anymore.”
Not at all surprising, Trump stoked his followers to take action and head to capitol hill to protest and said:
“And after this, we’re going to walk down there, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down … to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. … And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
“You’re the real people. You’re the people that built this nation. You’re not the people that tore down this nation.”
Soon after Trump spoke, his supporters believing all Trumps lies that the election was rigged, when it was not, went to the United States Capitol to protest. The Congress had already begun the process of counting and certifying the electoral college vote. A mob was able to breach security and successfully enter the building, where one person was shot and later died.
Hundreds of pro-Trump protesters pushed through barriers set up along the perimeter of the Capitol, where they engaged with officers in full riot gear, some calling police officers “traitors” for doing their jobs. About 90 minutes later the domestic terrorists got into the building and the doors to the House and Senate were locked. Shortly after, the House floor was evacuated by police. Vice President Mike Pence was also evacuated from the chamber, he was to perform his role in the counting of electoral votes. Some of the terrorists had even started to chant “HANG MIKE PENCE, HANG MIKE PENCE”.
The protesters first breached exterior security barriers, and video footage showed the domestic terrorists gathering and some clashing with police near the Capitol building. A number of Trump terrorists climbed up the side of the Capitol building to gain access. Windows were broken to gain access. Protesters roamed the interior of the building and went to the House Chamber and congressional offices and did property damage. In the end, 6 people died, one domestic terrorist shot and killed by capitol police with one capitol police officer succumbing to his injuries.
Within 7 hours after protestors took over the Capitol building and after they were evacuated from the building, the Congress returned to work and about 4:30 am in the morning on January 7, President Joe Biden was elected the new President of the United Sates. The final electoral college vote was Joe Biden 306 electoral votes, Donald Trump 232 electoral votes.
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
The video released by the Trump campaign that included an image of President Joe Biden bound and restrained in the back of a pickup truck is about as disgusting and slimy as it gets. It must be condemned in no uncertain terms and treated by the Secret Service as a threat of violence against President Joe Biden.
In Trump’s and his supporters very sick and very warped minds, they no doubt think that inciting violence against any opponent or someone who he disagrees with is somehow “freedom of speech.” For the last 8 years, there is no doubt that President Trump has promoted hostility, mistrust and violence towards the press as well as his critics with his words and conduct. Trump promoted violence, hostility and mistrust when he first ran for President and he is doing it again as he runs in 2024.
The courts, both state and federal, need to come to the realization that as the presidential election heats up and as Trump goes on trial, he will encourage and direct his supporters to attack the court houses.
Sooner, rather than later, someone is going to get killed and what happened with the January 6 capitol riot will play out at court houses to somehow set him free of criminal prosecution.
It also likely if the US Supreme Court does not rule in his favor on the question of immunity, Trump will vow to remove the Supreme Court if he is elected proclaiming the United States Supreme Court is corrupt by not doing his bidding.
Trump needs to be jailed pending trial in his criminal cases because time and time again Trump has proven he does not respect the courts. To Trump, court gag orders are not worth the paper they are written on. A “Commitment Order Pending Trial” is one court order Trump will no doubt read more than a few time sitting in a jail cell and understand.