Former President Donald Trump is not letting up with his campaign of antagonism and effective intimidation aimed towards those opposite him in the four criminal cases he is facing and beyond. That list also includes the civil case against him from New York state Attorney General Letitia James that went to trial this week in New York City, though a key portion of the case was already decided, with the judge having backed the contention from James that Trump perpetrated fraud.
Trump has claimed elsewhere that the disputed financial statements actually understated his personal assets… but wouldn’t that still be the same kind of actionable misstatement? Anyway, Trump kept up the threatening comments this week, and former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann argued that anyone else would be getting “severe restrictions” for the behavior in which Trump is engaging.
“If I weren’t leading in all the polls, or if I weren’t running, I wouldn’t have any of these cases. I wouldn’t be seeing you this morning,” Trump said Monday to the press, eventually adding: “You ought to go after this attorney general, because she’s turning off everybody from coming in.” He appeared to mean literally “everybody” — or close to that category — because he then launched into a tirade about businesses supposedly keeping their distance from the northeastern state because of ostensibly bad policy from the top. “This man is out on bail in 4 criminal cases; anyone else would have severe restrictions placed on him for his repeated threats,” Weissmann said. “See eg Trump acolyte Roger Stone.”
Federal prosecutors did push in a separate criminal case against Trump for limited restrictions on the comments he could make publicly, specifically targeting the commentary in which he maligns witnesses or waves around more outright threats, though he often throws in hedging language leaving himself some arguably plausible deniability while still spreading utter drivel in factual terms to his followers.
This man is out on bail in 4 criminal cases; anyone else would have severe restrictions placed on him for his repeated threats. See eg Trump acolyte Roger Stone. https://t.co/xCAtqjMeoX
— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) October 2, 2023
