Jack Smith has charged Donald Trump with crimes he's committed throughout his life -- fraud and conspiracy. But he does not hold Trump responsible for the violence behind January 6th. He writes that Trump "took advantage of " the violence. Fani Willis puts violence at the centre of her indictment of Trump. Jennifer Rubin writes:
The indictment describes defendants traveling to Freeman’s home to mislead and intimidate her. Willis alleged Trump defamed Freeman to Georgia officials (claiming she was a “a professional vote scammer and a known political operative” and saying that “Ruby Freeman, her daughter, and others were responsible for fraudulently awarding at least 18,000 ballots to Joseph R. Biden at State Farm Arena in the November 3, 2020, presidential election in Georgia.”) Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that Freeman had stuffed ballot boxes.
Trump tweeted references to a conspiracy about Freeman to his followers, which we know included those who were menacing election workers, making threats and endangering the lives of Freeman and others.
Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is also accused of bantering about lies concerning Freeman (who he falsely stated had been “quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine”). These lies reverberated through social media, putting a target on Freeman’s back and helping escalate threats against Georgia officials.
The indictment works to refocus our attention on the mob Trump and Giuliani allegedly tried to incite, to the threats the MAGA horde lobbed toward election officials and others, and to the gripping testimony from Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss, at the House Jan. 6 hearings. From everything we’ve seen, these Georgians’ lives were made a living hell.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” and an expert on fascism, told Insider that Trump resorted to inciting the crowd to violence when his other schemes failed “because he truly believes that violence is a way you can change history.” She added, “The thing about autocrats today is that they’re all corrupt, but they’re also violent. They use all of these tools at the same time. So, we can’t isolate one and say that Jan. 6 was just about this or just about that. It was everything. It was a process of months and it culminated in violence.”
Willis' case will probably conclude after the election. Trump has blood on his hands. And Willis is determined to make Trump pay for that blood.
Image: The New York Times
6 comments:
I get the distinct impression that if justice is to be served, it will be at the hands of the Georgia prosecutor, Owen. She seems resolute in her pursuit of Trump and his fellow conspirators, and the added advantage, of course, is that a state conviction cannot be pardoned.
She knows how to deal with a mob boss, Lorne -- which is what Trump has always been.
I'm starting to get a little nervous about the shaping of the sides in this argument. It stinks like the OJ Simpson trial was lop sided by racial bias and the division was very distinct. Every Cracker in the South is going to toe the line based on losing ground to an increasingly aware and educated class of voters who have had enough and are drawing a line in the sand. We will see where the "rule of law really counts in a Democratic Republic. I will be returning to the mid west this fall so I can report from behind the lines.
I look forward to those reports, zoombats.
Some animals don't have blood of the own, so we must assume that the blood on his hands came from colleagues or victims.
The bloodless take enjoyment from watching others bleed, hels.
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