Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance joined a chorus of voices on the left and the right — including GOP-appointed federal judge Reggie B. Walton — in condemning former President Donald Trump‘s increasingly provocative and dangerous rhetoric. Trump, who is under a gag order in New York that forbids him to publicly intimidate and threaten potential witnesses, jurors and court personnel, seems to have escalated rather than tamped down his furor in online posts since the gag order was put in place.
“Unprecedented and out of bounds,” Vance writes of Trump’s latest video share on Truth Social — a social network he controls — asserting that “if you or I did this, the Secret Service would be on our doorstep within hours.” The video features an image of President Joe Biden, bound and toppled, on the tailgate of a pickup truck as it speeds down the highway.
Vance is unequivocal: “Today, [Trump] threatened the President of the United States. It’s time for the people with authority to do so to deal with him.”
The former U.S. Attorney writes: “I know from experience as a prosecutor how seriously the Secret Service takes every single threat, or anything close to a threat, made against the President of the United States. They take it seriously even when it looks like the person making it lacks any capacity to carry it out.”
Trump, who has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to get his followers to execute his wishes, does not qualify as one who “lacks any capacity to carry it out.”
[NOTE: In 2019, the “D-List” comedian/actress Kathy Griffin shared violent imagery of Donald Trump when he was POTUS, which she said resulted in not just career catastrophe, but interrogation by the Secret Service and the Assistant U.S. Attorney’s Office. Griffin told a podcast recently: “I actually just got a FOIA back, Freedom of Information Act, recently, expressing how serious [the Department of Justice] were about trying to charge me with the crime of conspiracy to assassinate the president of the United States.”]
1/Imagine the impact Trump has on potential witnesses & jurors when he targets a Judge’s daughter, a POTUS. If Trump can get away with that, then what protection do regular folks have if they take the witness stand against him or vote to convict?
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) March 30, 2024
The footage Vance points to — and which other media outlets are also drawing attention to — is itself new for Trump, though the pattern of violent imagery accompanying his violent rhetoric (“bloodbath”) is not. The New York Times, considering Trump’s most recent threat, describes a history of similar behavior — also indulged by Trump without impactful consequence:
The former president has, for example, repeatedly shared videos depicting him hitting Mr. Biden with golf balls. Mr. Trump also posted a photo last year of him holding a baseball bat next to Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, who is prosecuting Mr. Trump in connection to a hush money payment made to a porn star during the 2016 campaign.
“It’s unthinkable, unconscionable,” Vance asserts, “for a former president to even intimate that violence against the current president is acceptable.” Vance also asserts that it is too late to hope for condemnation from GOP leaders, who have habituated themselves to this behavior and continually fail to object.
Vance calls for law enforcement — and the Secret Service — to intervene, but there is a challenge here too, as Trump has positioned his plight in such a way that enforcement action is certain to further incite his loyalists. It’s a difficult situation, with few good options simply because the transgressor is supported by legions in his transgressions.