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Truth Social logo
Most Americans already knew how incredibly dangerous it was for Donald Trump and other Republicans to angrily attack the FBI for retrieving top-secret government documents from the former president’s private beach house in Mar-a-Lago.
Declaring open season on federal law enforcement takes on a whole new meaning when we’ve all seen videos of a raging, armed mob of Trump’s most violent supporters beating Capitol police unconscious and screaming “Kill them with their own guns!”
But that didn’t stop Trump and Republicans throughout the country along with every rightwing talk show host, deranged conspiracy theorist, anti-government provocateur and babbling extremist from recklessly unleashing a torrent of toxic public hatred against the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department.
Calling All White Supremacists!
The explicit calls for political violence didn’t bother with any of the subtle code words Republicans used to employ to signal their support for white supremacists and heavily armed militias like the Proud Boys before Trump proudly embraced them publicly.
Here’s a sample of the violent threats against democracy flooding the internet after the Mar-a-Lago search: “When does the shooting start?” “Civil War! Pick up arms, people!” “Summertime is made for killing fields!” “I’ve already bought my ammo!” “The Second Amendment is not about shooting deer! Lock and load! Tomorrow is War!”
Those weren’t just idle threats either. Within hours after the search, Ricky Shiffer posted on Trump’s social media site Truth Social: “People, this is it … This is your call to arms from me. Leave work tomorrow as soon as the gun shop opens, get what you need to be ready for combat.” Later he posted: “Be ready to kill the enemy. Kill (the FBI) on sight.”
Two days later, Shiffer was fatally shot on a rural road in Ohio after a 6-hour armed standoff with the FBI and state police. Shiffer had fled after he tried to break into the FBI’s Cincinnati office wearing body armor and carrying a gun.
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“Truth (sic) Social”
Trump created Truth Social to call into action his most dangerous supporters now that he’s been banned from Twitter for his violent rhetoric. It attracts fewer than two million monthly users compared to the 300 million Trump used to reach on Twitter, but it’s popular with Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other armed militias excited by the personal ravings of their leader with randomly capitalized words and lots of exclamation points.
Elected Republicans made a serious political mistake by publicly siding with Trump against law enforcement when they still didn’t know what crimes he might have committed by illegally taking top-secret government documents home with him after he lost the presidency. The way Republicans found out was embarrassing.
Republican leaders demanded Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland release the FBI search warrant and a list of everything agents took from Trump’s house. When Garland complied, Republicans learned the FBI seized 20 more boxes of classified documents including four sets of documents classified as top-secret and three more as secret. Some of the top-secret documents related to nuclear weapons that could compromise national security.
Mindboggling Theft
The search warrant said agents were seeking “evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items” possessed illegally in three potential crimes—violating the Espionage Act, destruction of records and concealment or mutilation of government material.
“Some of what was in Trump’s possession is mind-boggling,” said Javed Ali, a senior official at the National Security Council during Trump’s presidency who now teaches at the University of Michigan. That’s why Trump who received a copy of the search warrant and the list of what agents took didn’t release either of them himself.
None of Trump’s conflicting lies about why he had top-secret government documents in his basement make any sense. They’ve ranged from he had no classified documents, the FBI agents planted them, or he magically waved his former presidential hand over all the secret documents and declassified them. Even presidents are required to follow a procedure involving other officials. Ex-presidents have no power to declassify anything.
Meanwhile, there’s a Hollywood screenwriter working on a thriller about a superhero racing against time to stop an evil former president from selling America’s nuclear secrets to the international terrorist making the highest bid.
Republicans already were facing growing problems in the November midterms saddled with terrible pro-Trump candidates and their radical Republican rightwing Supreme Court’s destruction of the Constitutional rights of half the population to make decisions about their lives.
The last thing Republicans needed were continuing revelations everyday about the federal investigations into all the crimes committed by their lawless former president against democracy.
The banishment of Liz Cheney by Republicans shows there’s no longer any room in the party for intelligent conservatives who support democracy. Republicans are no longer an American political party. They now believe in one-man rule. Voters rejected that man and his dangerous, violent supporters once. They need to do it again in November.
