How much more violence does Trump need to incite before judges will stop this?!

MAGA terrorist chatter is way up

On Tuesday, I published an article titled, “Trump wants another MAGA terrorist attack—and alarmingly he may get it.” On Wednesday, we saw an alarming example of MAGA violence in Utah when a MAGA extremist died in a shootout with FBI agents who were attempting to arrest him for threats he made to kill President Biden—as well as Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and others.

At the outset I want to note that I wrote my article Tuesday not to scare people—or to be provocative-- but because I’m deeply concerned that we are seeing an uptick in MAGA threats and will soon see more violence. Beyond the reports of increased threats versus judges, prosecutors and others who are involved in the prosecution of Trump, an anecdotal example I gave was the uptick in angry MAGA emails I’ve received in the past few weeks.  (I included screen grabs in my article.)

On Wednesday night on my SiriusXM show, Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson joined me where he shared that he has also encountered an alarming uptick death threats against him in the past few weeks. (You can watch clip below)

This should not be dismissed as a coincidence. Rather it’s more evidence of increased “MAGA chatter” the same way experts labeled Al Qaeda threats as “Al Qaeda chatter” in the years after 9/11.

That brings us the MAGA extremist in Utah who apparently chose to die for Trump instead of surrendering to the police.  While the facts surrounding the shootout that led to the death of Craig Robertson are still being developed—some things are clear.

Robertson—who is 74 years old—referred to himself a "MAGA Trumper.” In the past few months, he had posted on Facebook threats to assassinate President Biden who was to be in Utah on Wednesday. One Robertson post read, “I HEAR BIDEN IS COMING TO UTAH,” one threat read, according to prosecutors. “DIGGING OUT MY OLD GHILLE SUIT AND CLEANING THE DUST OFF THE M24 SNIPER RIFLE. WELCOM, BUFFOON-IN-CHIEF!” (Robertson reportedly owned a sniper rifle and other firearms.)

As CNN reported, Robertson also posted online threats in recent months “against other Democratic politicians and prosecutors who have brought cases against former President Donald Trump.”  For example, Robertson posted on Trump’s Truth Social, he was planning to go to New York to kill Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg who is prosecuting Trump, writing, “I want to stand over Bragg and put a nice hole in his forehead with my 9mm and watch him twitch as a drop of blood oozes from the hole as his life ebbs away to hell!!”

In response to threats versus the President, in March the FBI visited Robertson, speaking to him outside his home. Per the charging documents, at the time Robertson was wearing a Trump hat and an AR-15 pin. After that discussion, Robertson posted on social media, “To my friends at the Federal Bureau of Idiots: I know you’re reading this and you have no idea how close your agents came to ‘bang.’” He also wrote: “The FBI tried to interfere with my free speech right in my driveway. My 45ACP was ready to smoke ’em!!!” (A 45ACP is a firearm.)

Robertson also posted a message directed at the FBI on July 27 and shared it again two days ago, saying “Hey FBI, you still monitoring my social media? Checking so I can be sure to have a loaded gun handy in case you drop by again.”

That takes us to Wednesday, when the FBI sought to arrest Robertson after he was charged with three federal crimes, including threats against the president as well as influencing, impeding and retaliating against federal law enforcement officers by threat. According to reporting by Utah’s largest paper, The Deseret News, a neighbor told them that when the FBI asked Robertson to come out, he responded, ‘I’m not coming out (expletive).” And CNN reports, FBI SWAT agents were giving commands to the man when he pointed a gun at them.

Robertson was clearly a MAGA extremist who wanted to avenge Trump by targeting—even if only on social media—those who he perceived Trump’s enemies.  And it appears he was willing to die for Trump. That is exactly what Trump wants. And I can assure you that Trump will not denounce Robertson the same way he never denounced the  MAGA extremist who last August waged an armed attack  on an FBI field after Trump demonized the FBI for searching his home.

Indeed, it’s more likely Trump defends Robertson the same way he has repeatedly defended the Jan 6 terrorists including Ashli Babbitt who was killed after jumping through a window to get into a secure area in the Capitol during the Jan 6 MAGA terrorist attack.

We may very well see Trump make Robertson a Trump martyr to rile up his base further. This comes right from the fascist playbook as Hitler did the same with Nazi Horst Wessel who was killed in 1930 by communists. As The Holocaust Encyclopedia explains,  “The Nazis used Wessel’s legend to celebrate their ideals of political violence and self-sacrifice—and to encourage others to fight and die for the Nazi movement.” And alarmingly, “His death was also used to rationalize attacks on Communists and other targets of the Nazi Party.”

But there are also other deeply alarming developments in past few days. The first happened shortly after the shooting in Utah on Wednesday. As The Deseret News reported--and as you can see from photo below-- one Trump supporter stood near the crime scene taunting the FBI while wearing a MAGA hat, Trump shirt, camouflage pants while holding an “F*ck Biden” flag. 

Trump has successfully radicalized some in his base to believe the FBI is the enemy to the point where a MAGA extremist would taunt FBI agents to their face after a deadly shooting.

Secondly, we now have Donald Trump running a television ad in various markets targeting the prosecutors in the cases against by name and smearing them with lies, such his vile attacks about Fulton County DA Fani Willis.  This comes just a week after Willis went public that her offices have received racist threats including ones calling her the “N word” and calling her “Jim Crow Democrat whore.” Willis has reportedly instructed her staff to not respond to Trump’s “derogatory and false” remarks in the ad, noting, “We have no personal feelings against those we investigate or prosecute and we should not express any.” She added, “This is business, it will never be personal.”

And as reminder, Trump’s lies after the 2020 election targeting Fulton County election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss resulted in a “a mob of Donald Trump supporters” attacking them “online and in person.” As Freeman put it during her gripping testimony before the Jan 6 committee, “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States to target you? The president of the United States is supposed to represent every American. Not to target one.” The threats by MAGA extremists elevated to the point where the Freeman said she wasn’t able to live at her home for two months after FBI officials warned her it would be unsafe in the days before Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump knows his base better than any of us. He understands how they will respond. And after years of this, so do we. The hope is that federal judge Tanya Chutkan—who is presiding over Trump’s crimes for attempting a coup—will take steps to rein in Trump’s intentional efforts to incite threats and violence.  On Friday, Judge Chutkan—who is now receiving additional security because of threats against her-- is holding a hearing on the scope of a protective order.  That could be the perfect setting to raise the issue to Trump’s lawyers of a limited gag order.

An instructive case is Trump’s BFF Roger Stone during his prosecution in 2019 brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office for lying to Congress and witness tampering. At first, the federal judge only limited Stone from discussing the case in or around the courthouse. But after Stone posted online an image of a gun crosshair near the judge’s image, the judge extended the gag order to bar Stone from making any public comments of any kind about the charges he’s facing from the special counsel.  And importantly, the judge banned Stone from making any social media posts or speaking through surrogates about his case.

This is a good framework for Judge Chutkan. She can order a partial gag order now to reduce Trump’s incitement of violence. And if he violates, it then she should impose exactly what happened to Stone. From there, if Trump continues to violate the order, he must be remanded to custody until trial.

This is not limiting Trump’s First Amendment rights when it comes to running for office. He can speak about political issues, attack his fellow Republicans, President Biden etc., on policy issues or even personally.  What it does do is prevent Trump from knowingly spewing lies from his megaphone that are designed to rile up his base to make threats or commit violence against judges, witnesses, law enforcement jurors etc.  

If steps are not taken now to prevent this, I can 100 percent assure we will see more MAGA terrorism.

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