This week, amid the first days of a criminal trial in New York City, ex-President Donald Trump began targeting online the participants in jury selection.
Specifically, he shared deceptive rhetoric about the jury selection process originating with Fox News’ Jesse Watters. “They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury,” Trump’s version of the quote — posted directly to his account on Truth Social — said.
“On its face, Trump’s post violates the gag order. His attorneys will argue that he is just amplifying or “reposting” someone else’s comment. But @svdate is right. Trump didn’t just retweet something. He typed it out word for word, essentially adopting Watters’ statement,” former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti wrote on social media.
And key concerns driving all of this aren’t theoretical. Individuals ending up opposite Trump in political and legal contexts have faced documented and serious threats as lies or just vitriolic antagonism have circulated. In that vein, a federal judge just in recent days upheld nearly $150 million in penalties on longtime Trump ally Rudy Giuliani for upheld claims of defamation from a mother and daughter who were election workers in Georgia during the 2020 presidential race and were subsequently named in conspiracy theories of systematic election fraud. They faced serious threats in connection to their targeting, which continued even from Trump himself after he left the presidency.
“Trump is now “re-truthing” fake allegations about jurors. A full jury isn’t even sworn in and he’s already coming for them,” warned ex-federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance on social media.
Prosecutors are already challenging Trump for allegedly violating his gag order, an effort to which they might add this rhetoric about jurors — a group specifically protected. On MSNBC, former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann argued that it’s perfectly feasible, logistically speaking, for Trump to be jailed if circumstances progress to that.
