This Monday, former President Donald Trump — facing a return to his New York City criminal trial, which was moving to opening statements as the work week began — called via his personal account on his knock-off social media site Truth Social for protests from his supporters.
For some, the call could bring back memories of the pattern of lies and argued incitement that became the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in early 2021, in connection to which a wide range of criminal proceedings are continuing.
Trump was specifically complaining about supposedly special treatment given to protesters classified — by him, at least — as on the far-left, though these groups also face plenty of their own legal consequences if that’s where circumstances lead.
“America Loving Protesters should be allowed to protest at the front steps of Courthouses, all over the Country, just like it is allowed for those who are destroying our Country on the Radical Left, a two tiered system of justice,” Trump told his followers. “Free Speech and Assembly has been “CHILLED” for USA SUPPORTERS. GO OUT AND PEACEFULLY PROTEST. RALLY BEHIND MAGA. SAVE OUR COUNTRY! “THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF.””
Well, there’s also the law — although in the context of Capitol riot defendants, Trump has already been proposing pardons for and the release of such individuals in the event that he regains the presidency, which would essentially reverse what’s been up to now the due process of the justice system.
Trump alleges that charged Capitol riot defendants are facing essentially the same imagined forces that he’s supposedly facing, who drive, in his imagining, political persecution… but there’s just no real-world proof for some sweeping plot as opposed to the argument with the involvement of a variety of individuals — and kinds of individual — that Trump and/or these Capitol riot defendants have violated very specific legal provisions.
