Donald Trump unleashed an unhinged tirade attacking President Joe Biden and the U.S. system of justice, baselessly alleging that America’s current president is behind the criminal indictments he faces, and demanding to know why President Biden did not indict him before he was elected to office, when Trump was still President.
In 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland rebuilt the wall between U.S. Dept. of Justice and the rest of the executive branch, including the Oval Office, a wall President Barack Obama had strengthened before Donald Trump opened large holes into it. There is no indication President Biden has anything to do with any prosecutions of Donald Trump or anyone else. A USA Today fact check makes clear: “Legal experts say Biden did not play a role in Trump’s indictment.”
But Sunday night into Monday morning, Trump on his Truth Social platform attacked President Biden again.
“The Corrupt Biden Administration just took away my First Amendment Right To Free Speech,” he wrote, before launching into an all-caps rant: “NOT CONSTITUTIONAL! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN…”
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Trump appears to be referring to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s Sunday evening decision to reinstate the gag order she paused while Trump appealed it. Trump appeared to violate that order and her previous warnings, including the conditions of his pre-trial release recently. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office requested the gag order be reinstated.
Just past midnight Trump added another post attacking Judge Chutkan over the gag order, calling her, “the very Biased, Trump Hating Judge in D.C.” He claimed she “should have RECUSED herself due to her blatant and open loathing of your favorite President.”
Trump also claimed the gag order “will put me at a disadvantage against my prosecutorial and political opponents. This order, according to many legal scholars, is unthinkable! It illegally and unconstitutionally takes away my First Amendment Right of Free Speech, in the middle of my campaign for President.”
But as Judge Chutkan wrote in her order, “the First Amendment rights of participants in criminal proceedings must yield, when necessary, to the orderly administration of justice—a principle reflected in Supreme Court precedent, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the Local Criminal Rules, ” CNN reported. “And contrary to Defendant’s argument, the right to a fair trial is not his alone, but belongs also to the government and the public.”
It has been well-documented that Trump’s associates have said he planned to announce his 2024 presidential campaign in hopes of warding off prosecutions, or staying out of jail.
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Meanwhile, minutes later, Trump baselessly demanded to know: “Why didn’t Crooked Joe Biden tell his Injustice Department to file the lawsuits and Indictments against me 3 years ago, instead of right in the middle of my campaign for President?”
“You’re setting a BAD precedent for yourself, Joe. The same can happen to you,” he adding, leading one top legal expert to say he is threatening to prosecute Biden if he gets back in the Oval Office.
“Trump threatens Biden with prosecution,” wrote former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, now an MSNBC legal analyst and p-rofessor of law, in response to Trump’s post.
Trump restarted his rant less than seven hours later, at 7:32 AM.
“Why didn’t they start the totally political BIDEN INDICTMENTS & COURT CASES Three (3) Years Ago, instead of the MIDDLE OF MY CAMPAIGN???”
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Seven minutes later: “If they started the highly political Biden Indictments 3 years ago, everything would now be finished. THEY WAITED UNTIL MY CAMPAIGN BEGAN!”
Three years ago was October 30, 2020.
Donald Trump was still president and a candidate for re-election. Election Day in 2020 was still days away, November 3, 2020.
It would have been impossible for candidate Joe Biden to order a prosecution of President Donald Trump “three years ago,” and nearly three months before Biden was sworn in to office.
But, as The New York Times reported in 2018, Trump has wanted to order the prosecutions of his political opponents.
“President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.”
Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license