President Donald Trump still seems convinced that some of his political opponents should be jailed. After having previously suggested that individuals including Barack Obama and Joe Biden themselves should be jailed for imaginary crimes that Trump has made up that they’ve committed, Trump has now come out with yet another new target: Christopher Steele. The former British intelligence agent is responsible for the assembly of an infamous dossier of information including salacious allegations about Trump’s ties to Russia. Some of the dossier has been deemed uncredible, yet, the overarching fact of the Trump team’s intermingling with corruption remains clear — but Trump still wants Steele jailed.
If Trump was a leader in probably just about any country other than the United States, most Republicans would likely have no problem with recognizing his authoritarian and even totalitarian tendencies. Since he’s their own party leader, their ideological commitment takes over. Saturday morning, Trump tweeted, in reference to Steele:
‘This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail. A sick liEr who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC!’
Trump didn’t even bother trying to identify any crimes that Steele committed. Instead, he just jumped to alleging that yet another one of his political opponents should be in jail, as if he imagines himself to be some kind of dictator or king.
This man should be extradited, tried, and thrown into jail. A sick lier who was paid by Crooked Hillary & the DNC! https://t.co/ywMBeAgaGz
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2020
Bring back Steele!!! https://t.co/jL5c8WF28Z
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 11, 2020
Trump’s tweets came after a British court ruled that Steele’s company must pay about $23,000 in damages over the apparently false allegation that Russian billionaires Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman had secretly funneled money to Vladimir Putin when the eventual Russian leader was serving as a deputy mayor in St. Petersburg. That case doesn’t even directly involve Trump, but the president seems ready and willing to call for yet another political opponent to be jailed anyway.
The rant against Steele came the day after Trump commuted the prison sentence of Roger Stone, who’d been set to report to prison on Tuesday to serve the sentence associated with his conviction on charges relating to an obstruction of justice scheme in which he tried, in part, to shield the president. Could Trump’s corruption be any more brazen? An ally committed crimes partly to Trump’s benefit, and he used his presidential powers to erase consequences.
"If I were a Democrat instead of a Republican, I think everybody would've been in jail a long time ago, & I'm talking with 50-year sentences…people should be going to jail for this stuff…this was all Obama. This was all Biden": Trump suggests Obama & Biden should be in prison pic.twitter.com/MOwPvpYRu4
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 14, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response below:
