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Maddow: Other arrested politicians never tried to break the rule of law the way Trump is threatening
March 20, 2023
Donald Trump spent the weekend sounding the alarm on the "witch hunt" that is after him for the hush money payments he gave to adult film star Stormy Daniels. At one point on Saturday, Trump ranted that he was to be arrested on Tuesday and that he desperately needed his supporters to show up and protest.
As of Monday afternoon, there were about five reporters per protester standing outside Trump Tower. Meanwhile, Trump's most loyal allies, like Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) were begging MAGA supporters not to enact any kind of violence.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow began her Monday show by naming the dozens of politicians over the years who have been indicted and arrested — and whose mugshots were spread across the internet.
She reminded folks about former Vice President Spiro Agnew, who in 1973 swore he would never resign. A week later, he stepped down due to an indictment.
At no point, however, did any of those arrests lead to a breakdown of the law, much less violence on the streets.
On his social media account Sunday, Trump implied that police in the NYPD wouldn't want to be involved in arresting him since he's so loyal to them.
In Georgia, the state legislature passed a bill to remove prosecutors if people don't like who they're prosecuting. Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) said that he would sign it. While it hasn't been signed yet, the legislature is already at work to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from her elected position because of who the grand jury might recommend she indict. In a previous report, Maddow called it "authoritarian."
Disgraced former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik called for law enforcement to mutiny. Law enforcement at all levels must refuse to enforce the law, he claimed, according to Maddow.
"It does not bend the Constitution, let alone break it to indict criminals for crimes, even when the alleged criminal is someone who has been elected to a very important job," she explained. "It's run-of-the-mill public corruption enforcement in this country, and we do it all the time. And there is no reason why a former president should be magically immune from the same legal system that just in the past three years has put handcuffs on at least 13 state senators, 17 state representatives, one serving congressman, one former congressman, the Delaware state auditor, the North Carolina Republican Party chair, the insurance commissioner of Georgia, too many counselors, aldermen, executives and mayors to count. It happens all the time. It really does not have to be the end of the world."
She went on to say that if anyone is telling you that an indictment of this public official is something they've never seen before and that there will be an unstoppable civil war, it's because that's what they secretly want.
"Anybody telling you that is the consequence of him being potentially indicted, well, that person may be wishing for that, but there is no reason that something like that is inevitable," said Maddow. "This is not something coming up that is extraneous to our system that we need to invent something new to contend with. The bottom line here is that prosecuting public officials and former public officials — it happens all the time in the United States of America. And it never engenders violence. And it never endangers the country, and it doesn't require our legal system to be fundamentally rethought or dismantled."
See her comments in the clip below or at the link here.
Maddow reveals how arrested politicians never tried to break the rule of law the way Trump threatens www.youtube.com
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A former North Carolina police officer joined the Oath Keepers just days before the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. On Monday, she was sentenced for her involvement, reported The Charlotte Observer.
This comes as part of a group conviction of several members of the far-right group.
"Laura Steele of Thomasville was among a group of Oath Keepers who used a military 'stack' formation to storm up the Capitol steps and into the congressional building on Jan. 6, 2021, photographs in court filings show," reported Michael Gordon. "On Monday, a Washington, D.C., jury convicted Steele and three co-defendants of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, a federal crime that carries up to 20 years in prison, multiple media outlets reported. Steele, along with Sandra Parker, Connie Meggs and William Isaacs, was also found guilty of a host of lesser charges, including destruction of government property and conspiracy to prevent members of Congress from discharging their duties by certifying the results of the 2020 election."
"The verdict is the government’s latest blow against the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia group with strong N.C. ties that is accused of taking a leading role in planning and executing the Capitol attack," said the report. "The unprecedented violence, which was unleashed by a mob of Donald Trump supporters enraged by the former president’s baseless claims of a stolen election, has been tied to five deaths and injuries to some 140 police officers. More than 1,000 arrests have been made in the two-year investigation of the riot. Steele is one of least 28 North Carolina defendants, several with police and military ties."
Steele, the report noted, was a "late addition to the cause" who only applied to join the militia group "days" before the attack took place.
The Oath Keepers convicted on Monday immediately asked for a mistrial, only for the judge to deny the motion as the trial descended into pandemonium over revelations that some jurors had access to footage that hadn't been allowed in as evidence.
This comes after Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and five of his associates were found guilty of seditious conspiracy.
EXCLUSIVE: ‘Our best face’: Jan. 6 rally organizers coordinated with White House and militant Trump backers
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The American right has found a quick and easy way to push back against critics. When the going gets tough, they’re turning to what’s become their go-to trope: “Soros-backed.”
Manhattan District Alvin Bragg, who is investigating former President Donald Trump over alleged hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, is now at the center of GOP efforts to link Holocaust survivor and progressive Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who is Jewish, to an accusation tied to a litany of conspiracy theories and historic antisemitic canards.
But he's not the only one.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was quick to play the played the “Soros-backed” card last year in an announcement that he was suspending state attorney Andrew Warren over his views on abortion and trans youth. The likely 2024 presidential candidate disparaged Warren as a “Soros-backed state attorney.”
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump, in a column Monday titled “What it means to be ‘Soros-backed," said that “it’s worth reflecting on what earned Bragg and Warren this appellation — and why it’s become so useful for Republicans and others on the right to deploy it,” noting that the term’s vagueness makes it particularly useful.
RELATED: Trump ally Robert Costello reveals what he told the Manhattan grand jury
“There’s no reason to think that Bragg is targeting Trump or the Trump Organization because he was indirectly backed by Soros or because he is unusually left-wing,” Bump argues.
“On the other hand, it’s quite obvious that the phrase ‘Soros-backed’ is meant, as with Warren, to cast each as illegitimate and biased.”
The “Soros-backed” trope is not unique to American politics, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
“In far-right circles worldwide, Soros’ philanthropy often is recast as fodder for outsized conspiracy theories, including claims that he masterminds specific global plots or manipulates particular events to further his goals,” the ADL’s website says.
“In the United States, Soros long has been a favored target of the so-called alt right and other right-wing extremists. Their online echo chambers reverberate with conspiracies about Soros, accusing him of attempting to perpetrate “white genocide” and push his own malevolent agenda. In a report published earlier this year that analyzed antisemitic speech on Twitter, ADL found that Soros figured prominently in a significant number of antisemitic tweets.
“One noteworthy allegation claimed that Soros was responsible for the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Va. Other tweets referred to his Jewish heritage in pejorative terms and claimed that he’s trying to undermine all of Western civilization.”
The trope has become “useful shorthand” for the right, according to Bump.
“The real reason Bragg and Warren are dismissed as ‘Soros-backed,’” Bump writes, “of course, is that it’s a useful shorthand for several of the right’s favorite targets.”
Added Bump: “Saying 'Soros-backed' simply means 'unacceptably left-wing' with no further delineation required.”
ALSO IN THE NEWS: GOP's Hawley flattened in brutal profanity-laced column for berating St. Louis reporter
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