Former President Trump on Monday appeared to warn former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan against testifying before the Fulton County grand jury in the state’s 2020 election probe.
Driving the news: “I am reading reports that failed former Lt. Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, will be testifying before the Fulton County Grand Jury,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account on Monday.
- “He shouldn’t. I barely know him but he was, right from the beginning of this Witch Hunt, a nasty disaster for those looking into the Election Fraud that took place in Georgia.”
- Duncan, who criticized Trump’s false election fraud claims in 2020, said Saturday that he had been told to appear Tuesday before the Fulton County grand jury.
- “Republicans should never let honesty be mistaken for weakness,” he wrote in a post on X.
What’s next: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis appears poised to issue a charging decision on Trump’s alleged efforts to subvert election results.
The big picture: Trump’s Monday Truth Social post comes days after the judge overseeing a separate trial — the federal probe into his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election — warned against making “inflammatory statements” that could intimidate witnesses in that trial.
- U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said during a Friday hearing that any appearance of witness tampering would increase the need for a speedy trial.
- Trump already faces three criminal trials: In D.C. over efforts to overturn the 2020 election, in Florida over his retention of classified documents and in New York over an alleged hush money payment.
This is him attempting to call the judge’s bluff. Following the order, he also posted calling the judge biased. He’s exploring to see if the judge will let him get away with it. He’ll slowly ramp up the posts until the judge tells him to cut it out again, and then he’ll know where the line is. At that point, he’ll simply toe the line and cry “but it wasn’t a problem before” if she tries to cut down on it later.
He believes the judge is afraid to hold him in contempt, and thus far he has been correct. But this is a direct violation of the judge’s order, and the judge shouldn’t let it slide. If she treats this with leniency, he’ll only take it as tacit approval and continue getting more inflammatory. The only reason I can see for the judge allowing it to continue is to give him more rope to hang himself with. One violation of the order is bad, but if she lets it continue and he racks up a bunch of evidence, she may have better justification to hold him and expedite the trial.
Different case. (Can we pause for a moment to recognize how bonkers it is that a former president has so many criminal cases either in process or pending that it’s getting hard to keep track?)
The judge who ordered him not to engage in any witness tampering is overseeing the federal case against him for trying to overturn the election in 2020. In this particular instance, he appears to have threatened a witness in the Fulton County, Georgia case, for which an indictment is expected soon.
Would it make a difference? Threatening a witness in one trial when you have several others ongoing and in such a public fashion would have a chilling effect on witness testimony for all trails, or so I would think.
It might. I’m no lawyer, but it’s conceivable that the order will be interpreted as targeted specifically to witnesses in the federal trial.
That said, threatening people is illegal all on its own, so who knows…
I hate to say it, but Trump is correct: he could literally murder the judge in this (or any) case on live TV and get away with it. why? because they let him. they refuse to hold him accountable for anything, and that’s why he keeps doing this shit— and getting away with it.
The only reason I can see for the judge allowing it to continue is to give him more rope to hang himself with
the problem is: HE NEVER GETS HUNG WITH THE ROPE. he just gets away with everything, time and time again. fines are meaningless to him because he just gets his idiot supporters to pay for it.
And lets stop pretending that any level of discourse is going to reach the remaining trump cult, we could literally have a video of him raping their mothers and they would still vote for him, so its time to give up on those people they are never coming back no matter how much evidence we have or how many charges there are.
we could literally have a video of him raping their mothers and they would still vote for him
They would. They would call the video ‘fake news’ and find it easier to assume their mother was lying than admit their false prophet is capable of any wrongdoing. They’ve built their entire identities around their unwavering confirmation bias. The vast majority of people who ever successfully disconnect from a cult do so only posthumously.
MAGA cultists: Our moms should be honored that Trump likes them!
Also MAGA cultists: Dems caused our moms to get raped!
I believe under U.S. Law they have to arrest him again and post no bail. This is a blatant disregard for the law. To not act is an injustice to the history of common law going back 800+ years.
I can’t even tell if you’re joking. that’s how much of a shitshow joke our justice system has become.
This is for the Georgia case which hasn’t gone to a judge yet, he’s just trying to get ahead of things before he gets a gag order here too… which this will be used as evidence for…
But you’re right, there’s enough going on that it’s hard to tell the players without a program, so I made this:
This seemed to be popular information when I posted it (ahem) “elsewhere”. Thought it might be welcome to have here.
If you’re trying to keep track of where we’re at in the Trump prosecutions:
Updated 8/10/2023
Washington, D.C. - 4 felonies, January 6th Election Interference
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
(DOJ lawyer Jack Smith has requested a trial date of 1/2/2024, Trump lawyers have yet to supply a counter date. The judge will announce a final date on 8/28)
Trial
Conviction
Sentencing
Georgia - Election Interference
Investigation <- You Are Here
2 new grand juries impaneled 7/11/2023.
Indictment - July 11th to September 1st.
(Grand Jury work expected July 31 to Aug. 18)
(Streets around the Fulton County courthouse will be closed from 8/7 to 8/18.)
Arrest
Trial
Conviction
Sentencing
New York State - 34 felonies, Stormy Daniels Payoff
Investigation
Indictment
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - March 25th, 2024
Conviction
Sentencing
Florida - 40 felonies, Federal documents charges
Investigation
Indictment
Original indictment was for 37 felonies.
3 new felonies were added on July 27, 2023.
Arrest <- You Are Here
Trial - May 20, 2024
Conviction
Sentencing
Other grand juries, such as for the documents at Bedminster, have not been announced.
The E. Jean Carroll trial for sexual assault and defamation where Trump was found liable and ordered to pay $5 million before immediately defaming her again resulting in a demand for $10 million is not listed as it’s a civil case and not a crimimal one.
I don’t know that I’d attribute any actual strategy to this.
I think that’s a mistake that everyone had made about Trump from the beginning.
“Oh, he’s a marketing genius!”
Why? Because he put his name on everything? Maybe there’s a simple explanation: he’s a raging narcissist who likes putting his name on everything. The fact that his name is synonymous with being the top, or besting something is just his sheer dumb luck.
The fact is, every single thing he’s ever done can be explained as being an expression of his narcissism and impulse control problems, combined with the fact that he faces zero consequences for his behavior no matter how awful.
So, no, I don’t think he was testing the judge. I think he was just mindlessly attacking anyone who is a threat to him like he has always done in every situation.
His grandfather changed the family name from Drumpf to Trump, so his family chose to name themselves as ‘on top’ intentionally. He just inherited the narcissism.
The only reason I can see for the judge allowing it to continue is to give him more rope to hang himself with.
How much rope does one man get? He has already been given the entire rope store, distribution center, and manufacturing plant. He has so much rope he’d have to fall all the way to mars before he reached the end. He has more rope than he could ever use. At some point the hangman needs to do his job.
He’ll just continue to say what he’s always said, that this judge or that attorney or whoever is against him and this, that, and the other is rigged against him. As far as he’s concerned, it’s him vs the world.
Did you hear him the other day when he told people at his rally, “I’m being indicted for you.” Like he’s the second coming of Jesus and he died for his supportters’ sins.
As long as his supporters are on board, he’ll say whatever shit to make him look like the victim. And his supporters will be all for it.
What is it actually going to take to put this fucker in jail? Does he need to intimidate 20 witnesses first? I hate that the justice system feels they need to walk on eggshells around this wanna-be dictator cry baby.
How do you provide a secret service detail to someone in jail?
Logistics and stupid wording of laws never intended to protect someone so blatantly corrupt, will keep him from ever seeing the inside of a cell. Would be nice if he could be under house arrest with no visitation/internet access though.
A while back I actually looked into this question.
Former presidents are afforded several things by law, including a salary, a stipend for an assistant, and office space rental, and, of course, Secret Service protection for their lifetime.
However, the protection provided by the USSS is described as a duty to protect the (former) President. It doesn’t describe, what that looks like, how many agents are involved, or so on. It does allocate, though, up to $1,000,000 every fiscal year to provide that protection.
Hypothetically, if Trump were convicted and the punishment included imprisonment, more likely than not, the USSS would simply arrange for the individual to be isolated from any threats inside the prison and hand custody over to the prison. This might look like a member of the USSS being stations at the prison, essentially, as a guard, supervisor, monitor, etc.
I suspect the realistic scenario would look like the individual being put in an isolated wing or some sort of maximum-security facility, and the USSS checking in on a weekly or even daily schedule, and, in exchange, the prison would be allocated some portion of that annual $1,000,000.
Just get one of those cages he used for the Mexican kids and put it right in the secret service office. Boom, problem solved. They don’t even have to leave their desks.
You don’t. You throw his ass into solitary confinement since he can’t be in gen-pop, just like you would any other high-profile prisoner.
Depriving him of publicity woul be the worst punishment for this waste of skin.
He’s an old white dude with millions of dollars. He will go to “Club Fed” or more likely some kind of house arrest or probation. Honestly you don’t want him in a real badass prison because that makes him a martyr. If he’s just convicted and ignored that’s a worse punishment as he’ll slide into obscurity.
The thing is that the prosecutors have to play by the rules to get him, which takes time, but recently the claws definitely seems to be closing in on him, and the prosecutors have bemig weapons and trump can’t stop the system.
Right now it’s like a tank going very slowly toward Trump, sure it takes time but if the tank operator does everything right, it will get there eventually.
I feel like the whole “the jaws of justice are slowly closing around trump” comment is the narrative version of that looping gif of the truck almost running into the bollard. Academically, I agree with you. But I’m pretty sure the dude is going to be dead from one of the innumerable heath issues he faces before he sees any real consequence. Time will tell I guess, but like others, I’m not holding my breath. If there were any real justice in the world, trump would have died from Covid. That would have at least been poetic justice for his role in that colossal tragedy.
And allowing witnesses to be intimidated is like allowing trump to have a Javelin in your tank analogy. For the cases to be prosecuted correctly, the necessary witnesses need to give their testimony without fear of retaliation. He needs to be put into pre-trail detainment.
I’m convinced that Trump could murder someone live on camera and then claim it wasn’t him, a shapeshifter did it, and get away with it and still have a voter base defending him.
So is he
Quote from January 2016:
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,”
You’re missing a few steps that would occur after the murder. Here’s a helpful guide that would explain the path (curtesy of Dayna Craig):
The Narcissist’s Prayer
- That didn’t happen. <—YOU ARE HERE
- And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
- And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
- And if it is, that’s not my fault.
- And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
- And if I did, you deserved it.
The feds move slowly, but they have their teeth into him now.
Beau Of The Fifth Column has been pretty much nothing but diving into how fucked Trump is, finally, for a few months.
The Judge should lock him up for witness tampering.
18 U.S. Code § 1512 In cases of a threat of physical force intended to witness tamper, the maximum punishment is 20 years in federal prison. Intimidation, threats, or corrupt persuasion also subjects the defendant to a maximum punishment of 20 years imprisonment.
This is a state-level case, so it would be Georgia’s criminal code that would apply, not Federal
Under Georgia law it is a felony with a minimum of two, maximum of ten years in prison plus a maximum of $20,000 in fines.
