Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

Calling for violence and committing violence, like on January 6th, is what MAGA Republicans are all about.

Andy Biggs and Clay Higgins both MAGA Republican Congressmen were trying to incite civil war on Twitter by calling for war and violence.







‘We Need to Start Killing’: Trump’s Far-Right Supporters Are Threatening Civil War

Within minutes of Trump’s indictment, supporters lit up social media platforms with violent threats and calls for civil war.



In what is becoming a now all-too-familiar trend, former President Donald Trump’s far-right supporters have threatened civil war after news broke Thursday that the former president was indicted for allegedly taking classified documents from the White House without permission.

“We need to start killing these traitorous f********,” wrote one Trump supporter on The Donald, a rabidly pro-Trump message board that played a key role in planning the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Another user added: “It's not gonna stop until bodies start stacking up. We are not civilly represented anymore and they'll come for us next. Some of us, they already have.”

Trump has been indicted on seven counts following an investigation by special counsel Jack Smith into classified documents taken by Trump from the White House in 2021. The indictments have not been released, but Trump’s attorney Jim Trusty told CNN that his client  is facing a charge under the Espionage Act, as well as “charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements.”

Trump announced the news himself on Truth Social, writing that he had been indicted in the “Boxes Hoax” case, as he put it, and said he would be arraigned on Tuesday at Florida Southern District Courthouse in Miami. Within minutes, his supporters lit up social media platforms with violent threats and calls for civil war, according to research from VICE News and Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan think tank that tracks online extremism.

Trump supporters are making specific threats too. In one post on The Donald titled, “A little bit about Merrick Garland, his wife, his daughters,” a user shared a link to an article about the attorney general’s children.

Under the post, another user replied: “His children are fair game as far as I’m concerned.”

In a post about the special counsel conducting the probe, one user on The Donald wrote: “Jack Smith should be arrested the minute he steps foot in the red state of Florida.”

In addition to threats of violence against lawmakers and politicians, many were also calling for a civil war.

“Perhaps it’s time for that Civil War that the **** DemoKKKrats have been trying to start for years now,” a member of The Donald wrote. Another, referencing former President Barack Obama and former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said: “FACT: OUR FOREFATHERS WOULD HAVE HUNG THESE TWO FOR TREASON…”

Others on similar social media platforms made general calls for an armed uprising. “The entire Republican Party should flood the courthouse and demand real justice here,” one supporter wrote on Truth Social. It wasn’t just anonymous users saying this, however: Right-wing talk show host Charlie Kirk called on all Trump supporters to descend on Miami on Tuesday to protest the indictment.

“This is the JFK assassinaton all over again,” right-wing personality and Pizzagate promoter Michael Cernovich wrote, claiming that the “deep state” had killed JFK and were now using the Justice Department to take down Trump.

Other right-wing lawmakers and commentators also pushed the idea that this was a politically-motivated prosecution ordered by Joe Biden. Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy echoed Trump’s own words, calling Thursday “a dark day for the United States of America.” In a statement, he also claimed that Biden was directly behind the indictment of Trump in a bid to remove the leading GOP candidate for the 2024 election.

On right-wing media, hosts echoed the messages posted on social media, boosting the same baseless claims while using war-related language and providing no evidence to back up their allegations.

Fox News host Sean Hannity, for example, told his viewers that the U.S. justice system has “been weaponized beyond belief” and that the country is “in serious trouble,” while former Trump aide Stephen Miller appeared on Fox News and said he hoped the “whole of the Republican party, the whole of the conservative movement, the whole of the country that cares about the rule of law coalesces around President Trump.”

Later, one of Trump’s own lawyers Alina Habba appeared on Fox News and said she was “embarrassed to be a lawyer at this moment. Honestly, I'm ashamed to be a lawyer.”

And just like Trump’s last indictment in April, many of his supporters said they believed that these indictments would actually be a benefit to Trump’s campaign.

“It's the biggest campaign contribution ever, thanks Dims,” one user wrote on The Donald. “This will actually help Trump get re-elected by a wide margin. Then he will go on a rampage. These communists don't know when to quit,” another wrote.

Alternatively, some even believed that the latest indictments were the result of Trump’s failure to get January 6 prisoners released from jail while they awaited their trial, something the former president has no power over.

"Karma is a ***** isn't it, you rich **** *******,” a 4chan user wrote. “Leaving innocent people to be abused in the DC jail then catch hard time for supporting you on Jan 6th 2021, has consequences.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjjgb/trump-supporters-are-threatening-civil-war



'Scary as hell': Militia expert says Trump tweet from GOP's Clay Higgins is call for 'civil war'



Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) mystified many social media users with his response to Donald Trump's indictment, but one militia expert interpreted his tweet as a call to arms.

The Louisiana Republican tweeted out a seemingly inscrutable message Thursday after the former president confirmed he had been indicted in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, but award-winning journalist and author Jeff Sharlet saw the message as a violent threat.

"President Trump said he has 'been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM,'" Higgins tweeted. "This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all."

Sharlet, whose latest book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, features in-depth reporting on right-wing extremists, warned that the GOP lawmaker appeared to be calling for an insurgency.

"Deep scary: 1/50 k refers to military scale maps & publicly available US Geological Survey maps of areas mostly surrounding military installations," Sharlet said. "This isn’t a metaphor. This isn’t slow civil war. This is a congressman calling for the real thing."

"I think this is scary as hell," he added.

Higgins, a former police officer who claims to hold an "active commission" in law enforcement, was caught on video last month manhandling an activist who asked him about his ties to right-wing extremists, and he resigned from one police department in 2007 before he could face discipline for using unnecessary force by slapping a Black man while on duty.

He later gained notoriety by posting viral videos online showing himself wearing a police uniform and threatening purported criminals with violence and calling them "animals" and "heathens."

Higgins has previously spoken at events held by mostly white militias, including the Oath Keepers, and sold T-shirts at political events featuring the logo of the anti-government III Percent militia, while threatening to shoot members of a Black militia that took part in Black Lives Matter marches in 2020.

"If you’re laughing at Rep Clay Higgins using militia speak, referencing military grade maps, & telling Trumpers to 'know your bridges,' recall that Canadian far rightists held border bridges recently in a tense stand off," Sharlet warned. "This is on the table."

Sharlet went through and defined the phrases the congressman deployed and determined he was calling for a "county-level insurrection" in response to Trump's federal indictment, which Higgins characterized as an act of war.

"Take this seriously," Sharlet said. “'Perimeter probe': Higgins thinks indictment precedes bigger attack. 'rPOTUS': real POTUS,' Trump. 'Hold': 'stand back & stand by.' 'Buckle up': prepare for war. '1/50 k': military scale maps. 'Know your bridges': militia speak for prepare to seize bridges."

https://www.rawstory.com/rep-clay-higgins/

[Rick Plant]

Former Watergate journalist Bob Woodward says he’s not surprised by Trump indictment

CNN's Jake Tapper is joined by legendary Watergate journalist Bob Woodward and former Watergate Special Prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste to talk about former President Donald Trump's federal indictment.

Watch:

Criminal Donald has been lying about the top secret documents he stashed at his residence being "declassified" and his cheerleaders are parroting that same lie. Back in October of 2022, this report from CBS News shows Criminal Donald admitting the top secret documents that were seized at his residence were still classified documents. 


Trump contradicts claim on Mar-a-Lago documents

Oct 19, 2022

Donald Trump has acknowledged that some of the top secret documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate were classified. In recordings from Bob Woodward's new audio book, "The Trump Tapes," Trump says letters he exchanged with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un are "top secret." CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane discusses the latest.

[Rick Plant]

Trump indictment is only 'a fraction of the evidence the government has amassed': Maggie Haberman

Special counsel Jack Smith's indictment of former President Donald Trump drew praise for its thoroughness even from conservative legal experts such as Jonathan Turley and former Attorney General Bill Barr, who in the past have defended the former president amid numerous scandals.

And according to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, the government has a lot more damning proof that it can throw at Trump during his criminal trial.

Writing on Twitter, Haberman reveals that "the indictment, according to multiple people familiar with the case, shows a fraction of the evidence the government has amassed."

One of the biggest problems for Trump, Haberman writes, is that the government has been able to get much of its evidence from Trump's own lawyers who were forced to hand over their personal notes after special counsel Jack Smith's office successfully used the crime-fraud exception to pierce attorney-client privilege.

Haberman notes that Trump ignored his lawyers' own advice to turn over the documents in his possession as requested by a subpoena.

"Had Trump taken the advice of lawyers and advisers urging him to do what National Archives asked for nearly a year -- return the materials -- what followed would not have happened. Instead, almost everyone around him has been thrust into either peril or drama in the case," she writes.

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1668237816646586369



Why the Trump indictment isn't about politics but national security

David Rothkopf, Michael Schmidt and Brian Klaas join Morning Joe to discuss recent remarks from former AG Bill Barr on the Trump indictment and why the case is about national security.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Republicans ‘brought to their knees’ with ‘Trump’s insatiable appetite for violence’: Nicolle Wallace



Every day in America, people are charged with federal crimes and must appear in federal courthouses. There's rarely any violence and never an uprising. But as June 13 approaches, there is a fear that the "thinly veiled threats" about potential violence, at a federal courthouse in Miami, are more than bluster.

Mary McCord, who previously worked as the acting assistant attorney general for national security at the U.S. Department of Justice, spoke to MSNBC about it on Monday, saying that she was fearful Trump's arraignment could turn into another Jan. 6.

"This is something that's been building up over the years," McCord told MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace. "And you can already see it, if you just kind of compare this type of rhetoric from a few years ago, like pre-2020, to where we are now ... You see a consistent drumbeat of thinly-veiled calls to violence that get thinner and thinner. It seems like elected officials have continued to push the envelope of, you know, what they think they can get by with doing. What will come just short of crossing that line into a threat that is a crime or incitement to imminent violence, which is a crime, and others are not condemning it? So, it normalizes this type of rhetoric; it normalizes this type of violence."

Speaking to The New York Times over the weekend, McCord said that until there is some accountability for those using that kind of rhetoric, including elected officials, it's never going to stop.

"Instead, what happens is the people who listen to it, the people who feel like it's giving them permission to go out and engage in acts of harassment, intimidation, and violence, they're the ones who ultimately pay the price. We've seen that with the thousand prosecutions after Jan. 6th. If there are lone actors or groups that interrupt the judicial proceedings or engage in threats or intimidation near the courthouse, they may be arrested for various crimes they committed. Yet, too often, these elected officials who are really calling for it and normalizing it and giving permission oftentimes go scot-free. So, this is a dangerous spiral that we're in of continuing to escalate this kind of rhetoric that causes real-world actions."

Wallace harkened back to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, watching the drama unfold.

"Now you have a lot of the Jan. 6th enthusiasts pointing back to that and toward tomorrow in Miami," said Wallace. She then quoted people calling for "war" and for "blood." "MAGA will make Waco look like a tea party."

McCord noted that some of the threats could be actionable for the FBI. She's hoping that the mistakes of Jan. 6 helped law enforcement be more prepared to fully mobilize.

"It is surreal to have this conversation in private, having worked in the government," Wallace confessed. (She previously worked for George W. Bush's administration.)

"It is indescribable to have it on live TV and to have been a part of the party that is now part of the rot and threat to domestic security in the United States," Wallace added. I remember, and I think based on his early messages as a candidate, he won't mind if I disclose this for the first time. I remember talking to Chris Christie after Trump said 'Stand back and stand by,' to the Proud Boys. I think him explaining why he wouldn't do it. I understood not just Trump's enthusiasm for the support of anyone and everyone, including David Duke, but Trump's insatiable appetite for violence carried out. And that was the fall of 2016. What it has brought is — it's brought the entire Republican Party to its hands and knees."

She went on to call the GOP "impotent" for being unable to do anything to stop the violence from their own side and, in some cases, their own officials.

"If they decided today, this is not how they want the country to be... it's too late. It's too late. If this is something I could find before I came on the air, do you know what the radicalized extremists found? They're awash in violent tactical instructions on exactly how to carry out retribution for their leader, Donald Trump. What do we do?"

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump’s former White House lawyer Ty Cobb publicly stated last month that Trump is likely going to prison. Then Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr said that if even half of what’s in the DOJ indictment is correct, Trump is “toast.” Now Trump’s other former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney is saying that Trump’s odds of going to prison “are pretty high.” All of Trump's former lackeys all know he's headed to prison.   

Trump's Ex-Chief of Staff Says Guilty Verdict, Jail Time Chance 'High'
https://www.newsweek.com/trumps-ex-chief-staff-says-guilty-verdict-jail-time-chance-high-1806088

[Rick Plant]

'Do they really have that?' Former Trump documents case attorney astonished at Mar-a-Lago evidence



Special counsel Jack Smith has an enormous amount of damning evidence in the indictment against former President Donald Trump and his top aide at Mar-a-Lago, Walt Nauta, with respect to moving around boxes of highly classified information to conceal them from not just federal authorities but from Trump's own then-attorney Evan Corcoran.

At least, that's the assessment of Tim Parlatore, another former attorney for the president, who appeared on CNN's "OutFront" alongside former White House counsel Ty Cobb, to discuss the details of the indictment with anchor Erin Burnett. Parlatore previously had defended the former president as Smith's investigation entered its final stages and charges appeared likely, but in recent days acknowledged the indictment detailed far more severe behavior than he knew was going on.

"Can I first just ask you, because you're as close to this as anyone other than Evan Corcoran," said Burnett. "When you read this part that says that Walt Nauta was moving documents and moving boxes so that Evan Corcoran, the lawyer, attorney number one, would not know it and would therefore say you have everything. Did your jaw sort of drop for a second?"

Parlatore replied that, "It was definitely different from how I understood the theory of these boxes moving to be ... something I looked at and I thought, wow, 'do they really have that?' And, full candor, I read that and I was wondering. Because if that's what they actually had, it's something that I would have expected us to know about earlier."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Trump faces 37 federal charges, including dozens of violations of the Espionage Act, for allegedly trying to conceal highly classified national defense information from federal officials trying to return it to the National Archives, even moving it around from room to room in boxes so that his own lawyers wouldn't be aware there were documents he was refusing to give up.



Trump 'oversaw' the packing of classified documents when he moved from White House: legal expert



Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig outlined the new details revealed in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, who according to prosecutors oversaw every step of the removal of the classified documents from the White House, in a Monday segment on CNN's "The Lead."

"We're learning more about the locations of the boxes that contain classified materials inside Mar-a-Lago and just how close they were to the public," said anchor Jake Tapper. "It provides a disturbing timeline of the movement of the documents throughout Mar-a-Lago."

"Jake, these documents went on quite a journey which actually begins in Washington, D.C.," said Honig. "One important mystery that the indictment addresses is when these boxes were getting packed up in the final days of the White House, the indictment alleges, Donald Trump knew about that and oversaw it.

"There was some question before by some of his supporters, why would he be involved in the packing, the indictment alleges he was involved in that. Documents get shipped down to Florida, to Mar-a-Lago. And the first place they are stored is in this room, in the white and gold ballroom and, yes, that is a stage, that is where they are. And the indictment is, again, a little bit ambiguous. It says there were regularly events, weddings, fundraisers—"

"We see TikToks and stuff held in this," cut in Tapper. "Donald Trump shows up and gives a speech."

"Exactly," said Honig. "What the indictment says, this room was in use at the time that they stored those documents there. Next, they get moved temporarily to a business center and then they land in, yes, that is a bathroom and, yes, that right there is a toilet, that is a shower, that was their next destination in a place in Mar-a-Lago called the lake room. And then finally, and this is really the most important place where they land, these documents are moved to a storage room.

"There's one incident in the indictment where one of the attendants goes in and finds classified documents. They're blurred out. But highly classified documents spilled on the ground, and the indictment says this is the storage room right here and it says it was accessible by a hallway which you could get to by the pool patio. This is the pool right here and it was often kept unlocked."

"This becomes a focus for the obstruction charges," Honig added. "They get a subpoena, they move the boxes inside the storage room. But in the day before the lawyer appears, Trump has 64 boxes pulled out and only 30 returned. When the lawyer did that review, 34 boxes of documents were missing."

"Just a reminder, this is a hotel and resort," said Tapper. "This is not a presidential enclave. It's a hotel and resort."

Watch below: