'Reckless' Trump slammed over fundraising email that invites 'vigilante violence': expert
June 25, 2024
Former President Donald Trump is once again whipping his followers into a violent frenzy with his latest hyperbolically worded fundraising email, a former federal prosecutor warned Tuesday evening on MSNBC.
Trump's latest fundraising email proclaimed that "they tortured me" in the Fulton County Jail when he was arrested and processed to get his mugshot in the Georgia election racketeering case — something that is standard operating procedure for all defendants. It also comes after numerous cases of Trump supporters making violent threats against law enforcement officials involved in the former president's prosecution, with one Alabama man admitting to threatening calls to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Fulton County Sheriff Patrick Labat.
"Of course, they're supposed to get a mugshot, so guess what, I put it on a mug for the whole world to see," said host Joy Reid, referring to Trump's efforts to fundraise off his mugshot photo. "Your thoughts, Barb."
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"Well, you know, again, this is incredibly reckless conduct," said McQuade. "To say that he was tortured — I mean, does he mean that figuratively? I'm sure he doesn't mean he was physically tortured. There is absolutely no basis in fact for that."
What makes this so egregious, she continued, is that "he knows that there are people out there who will hear that as a call to action. Just as the Proud Boys heard his comment as a call to action. Just as when he falsely claimed that the FBI had planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago during the search, that someone heard that as a call to action, attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati the next day with an assault weapon, and was killed later that day in a standoff with police."
"It's incredibly reckless to use this kind of rhetoric, and he has to know that," she added. "It is inviting vigilante violence and it is making our country more dangerous."
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