M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
If the 45th president continues misbehaving on social media, he may be punching a ticket to a Manhattan lockup.
Former White House attorney Ty Cobb explained during an appearance on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” that former president Donald Trump is treading in deep water by castigating the prosecutors, judges, and staff involved in his civil and criminal cases readying for trial across the country.
Cobb was asked about a post on Trump's Truth Social site that reads: "MY FANTASY... I WOULD LIKE TO SEE LITITIA [SIC] JAMES AND JUDGE ENGORON PLACED UNDER CITIZENS ARREST FOR BLATANT ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND HARASSMENT."
"I believe that at some point comments like this will result in Trump not only being sanctioned — which will probably be the first order of business — but at some point these types of comments will result in him being put in jail pending some of these trials," Cobb said.
The post is taking direct umbrage against New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron who is presiding over Trump's $250 million civil fraud case and New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose prosecuting team is suing the Trump Organization for hyping up its assets on financial documents to secure favorable tax benefits and deals.
The former Trump attorney, who defended Trump's White House during special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia interference investigation, said that the spreading of the post alone flies in the face of on-and-off gag orders installed to tamp down his rhetoric.
"These are the types of incendiary attacks that do lead to violence," said Cobb. "He specifically asked people to conduct a citizen's arrest."
"Detention of either James or Engoron would be a crime if committed by any individual who was so motivated by the president's remarks," he added.
The attorney likened the Truth Social validation to Trump's frothy "Stop The Steal" rally speech when he said: “And we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
For Cobb the quieter move is "much like what he did on January 6th."
"It continues to be off the rails in terms of the extent to which his invective infects these proceedings and has the potential to intimidate witnesses."
For this, Cobb is convinced the former president espousing "petty dictator type talk" while the world is reeling in dangerous events and that such commentary "diminishes him and the United States every day."
