Trump just suggested jailing his political opponents – and MAGA has a plan in place
Donald Trump once again is threatening to jail his political opponents, including President Joe Biden. And unlike his 2016 presidential debate remark to Hillary Clinton, this time there's an actual plan in place to do just that.
In addition to saying, "lock her up," Trump has a history of repeatedly threatening or calling for Clinton to be thrown in prison. One month before the 2016 election Trump told a Florida crowd, "she has to go to jail." That was just days after the second presidential debate, when Trump told Clinton she would "be in jail" if he were president.
Trump has been strongly focusing on prosecuting and putting President Joe Biden in prison.
"Since the start of last year, Trump has issued direct or implied threats on Truth Social to use the powers of the federal government to target Joe Biden during a second Trump administration 25 times. Specifically, Trump has threatened him with FBI raids, investigations, indictments and even jail time," government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) wrote last month.
Tuesday night on the right wing media outlet Newsmax, Trump again threatened to jail his political opponents.
"So, you know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to," he said, NBC News reported, blaming Democrats for his criminal conviction, "and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them."
READ MORE: ‘Utterly Horrible’: Trump’s Putin Claim Ignites Anger, Again
Trump, according to Newsmax, also called his New York criminal conviction last week on 34 felony counts, "a terrible precedent for our country. Does that mean the next president does it to them? That's really the question."
"It's very possible it'll have to happen to them" -- Trump threats to imprison his political opponents pic.twitter.com/7X1JjBJyUA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 5, 2024
"One of Trump’s most consistent talking points on the trail centers on his intention to prosecute Biden if he regains executive power," NBC News reported in February.
“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of America, Joe Biden, and go after the Biden crime family,” Trump said last year in June. That was "just hours after being arraigned at a federal courthouse in Miami on charges alleging willful retention of classified documents."
When Trump first entered the Oval Office, he had institutional guardrails, as many experts have noted. He appointed former government officials, including his "generals," to top posts and they worked to steer him away from his most extreme desires.
Over time, those institutionalists resigned or were fired.
Now, thanks to a massive multi-million dollar enterprise funded in part by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, there's a plan in place to jail Trump's political opponents, should he win back the White House.
Project 2025 is the far-right's plan to entirely remake the Executive Branch to hand Trump massive, unchecked power, via a 920-page policy "mandate."
"Trump and his aides are reportedly assembling a list of people to be investigated, prosecuted, and possibly jailed," The Atlantic's Tom Nichols wrote last year. Nichols is a former U.S. Naval War College professor and expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs.
"Trump also wants to go after President Joe Biden for 'corruption,' which (like so many of Trump’s accusations) is pure projection," Nichols continued. "If Trump follows through on all of this lunacy, half the government will spend its days investigating the other half, while the military is put on alert in case too many Americans object to Trump’s destruction of their constitutional rights."
READ MORE: Johnson Says GOP Will Defund DOJ in Retaliation for Trump Conviction
"If you’re wondering how Trump plans to accomplish all of this, he likely has no idea. But his cronies at the Heritage Foundation (including former administration officials) do, and they are busily making plans. They’ve even written them down in something called Project 2025, a detailed blueprint for a right-wing takeover of the United States government. Trump, who seems to be losing his grip on reality more each day, might be devolving into a flaming piñata of offensive nonsense, but his enablers and the authors of Project 2025 know exactly what they’re doing."
Take Steve Bannon.
Last year Media Matters called Bannon's “War Room” podcast "the media home of Project 2025 and Trump’s retribution plans."
Last week, Bannon made the right's plans clear.
"The DOJ is completely corrupt from top to bottom," he said on his podcast in video reposted by The Recount. "It's going to have to be purged, it's going to have to be restructured," he said, insisting "they're going to have to get rid of lots of personnel on the afternoon of January 20, 2025."
"The FBI is the American Gestapo," Bannon added, also insisting it be "totally restructured."
Steve Bannon calls for the Justice Department and the FBI to be “purged” starting “on the afternoon of January 20, 2025.” pic.twitter.com/oU9AOAngaT
— The Recount (@therecount) May 28, 2024
Axios on Wednesday reported on "MAGA's jail plan."
"If former President Trump wins in November, top supporters will push him to investigate, prosecute — and even try to imprison — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who won Trump's conviction in the hush-money case," the news outlet reported.
"'Of course [Bragg] should be — and will be — jailed,' Steve Bannon, one of the top voices of the MAGA movement, told us — saying for the record what many Trump supporters are privately plotting."
Watch the videos above or at this link.
READ MORE: ‘I Worship God’: Greene Melts Down Again After Attacking Fauci in Profane Lie-Filled Rant