Trump’s Citizen's Arrest 'Fantasy' Is a Dangerous Game
Former President Donald Trump has been lashing out at his enemies on social media ever since before he even got involved in politics. But his latest outburst is raising eyebrows—even by Trump’s own lofty standards for drama.
That’s because legal experts say he’s stepping dangerously close to encouraging his fans to take action against the officials involved in his legal proceedings—while still, evidently, attempting to maintain a posture of deniability.
This time, Trump’s leaning into a fantasia of revenge.
Trump reposted a message on his social media site, Truth Social, from a low-profile account expressing a “fantasy” about Judge Arthur Engoron and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who are both involved in James’ $250 million fraud lawsuit against Trump’s family business.
The user wrote: “I WOULD LIKE TO SEE LITITIA [sic] JAMES AND JUDGE ENGORON PLACED UNDER CITIZENS ARREST FOR BLATANT ELECTION INTERFERENCE AND HARASSMENT.”
Trump, who has already drawn various levels of ire from judges across his many criminal cases, while his angry supporters lob threats at law enforcement officials, is playing with fire, experts say.
“It seems obvious to observers that Trump is trying to encourage his supporters—again—to do something that is dangerous and illegal,” said Harry Sandick, a former prosecutor for the Southern District of New York.
“At some point, these types of comments will result in him being put in jail pending some of these trials,” Trump’s former White House lawyer Ty Cobb told CNN on Tuesday.
At least one legal expert said the post “could and should” make Trump liable for incitement, even though Trump was sharing someone else’s “fantasy.”
“The post not only potentially subjects Trump to liability for incitement, but it also telegraphs his strategy in this case and possibly the other pending cases against him. He is trying to take his fight out of the courtroom and onto the screens of his would-be voters,” wrote Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University in a column for MSNBC.
Technically, New York does permit citizen’s arrest, according to Levinson, “but only when the person being arrested has committed a felony in the presence of the person making the arrest.” Neither Judge Engoron nor James have committed felonies in front of Trump—so the suggestion that Trump is simply trying to fight crime through legal means is absurd.
Consequences?
Trump has been goading prosecutors and judges in his criminal and civil cases for months, while so far managing to avoid any serious infractions despite repeated warnings and two violations of limited gag orders against him.
Legal experts who spoke with VICE News said that while Trump’s ultimate intent might seem transparent enough, his manner of expressing it likely insulates him from any legal attempt to hold him accountable for incitement for a post like this one.
“The test for incitement is challenging for prosecutors,” Sandick said. “Trump’s lawyers would say that his ‘retruth’ is not an endorsement of the underlying message, that since it is a ‘fantasy’ it lacks the necessary imminence for incitement, and also that by invoking an ‘arrest,’ he is only asking that the legal process function properly.”
Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, said the post lacks the immediacy necessary to show Trump wanted to incite someone to direct action.
“Incitement is a specific declaration to persuade somebody to engage in violence,” Rossi said. “As they say: Close, but no cigar.”
Threats
Yet Trump’s fans have already prompted safety concerns among the officials overseeing his criminal nightmare.
One recent threat was received by the office of Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the federal criminal case in Washington D.C. against Trump for election subversion. A Texas woman was arrested in August for allegedly leaving a voicemail in which she said: “Hey you stupid slave n----- … You are in our sights, we want to kill you.”
In the spring, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Trump with 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying documents related to the hush money payoff of adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Daniels claims she slept with Trump in 2006, but Trump denies her story and entered a not guilty plea in a Manhattan courtroom on April 4.
Bragg’s office was deluged with threats, the prosecutor later revealed, receiving over 1,000 threatening messages in just a few weeks around the time the charges were announced. Many were riddled with racist language. Someone sent an envelope full of white powder to the Manhattan DA’s office, which was eventually proven harmless.
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Greg Walters, Khareem Sudlow
