Jonathan Alter, a longtime political journalist, suggested during a discussion on MSNBC that former President Donald Trump could face the possibility of house arrest. The context is his federal criminal case from Special Counsel Jack Smith involving allegations of misconduct centering on Trump’s attempts to stay in power despite losing the presidential election in 2020 to Joe Biden, and the potentially inciting factor is Trump’s incessant public commentary, which could influence the jury pool and intimidate witnesses or others involved in the case.
And such could even be in very tangible terms, considering the documented inclination from some of Trump’s supporters to run with the now former president’s comments to the point of committing, or trying to commit, real-world physical violence. Remember the startling incident after the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s Florida resort Mar-a-Lago in which a Truth Social user attempted to violently attack an FBI office and was later killed in a stand-off with law enforcement?
“It’s conceivable that Judge Chutkan, if he continues to violate the terms of his bail, could subject him to house arrest,” Alter said. “That’s still possible.”
Trump’s commentary has also become an issue in his Georgia criminal case, where he’s formally under restrictions from making intimidating remarks — including in the form of reposts from other accounts on social media — towards other individuals connected to the case. The local prosecutor who brought that case, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, has been open about having received threats while she’s been in the public spotlight in this context. She mentioned those threats in a recent response to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as representing an area where there was an actual opening for substantive Congressional action — unlike whatever Jordan is trying to do in demanding insider info from Willis.
Included footage of Alter was earlier flagged by Raw Story.
