Opinion: Federal Judges and DOJ Prosecutors Warn That Trump Is Still Inciting Violence

Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:29 pm

According to two separate Supreme Court rulings, there is a limit on free speech that poses an inherent danger to public safety. Still, right-wing media outlets and Republican fascists continue parroting Trump’s Big Lie that the election was fraudulent and stolen from him. Now, federal officials assert that Trump poses a clear and present danger of more violence against the United States government.

Despite the evidence that Trump and his fascist cohort incited his deluded acolytes to storm the United States Capitol in a failed, but deadly, coup d’état on January 6, there is an ongoing and concerted effort to incite more violence against the government according to two federal judges and Department of Justice prosecutors.

The Federal Judges, Amy Berman Jackson and Emmett Sullivan, were presiding over cases involving Capital insurrectionists when they called out right-wing media and Trump specifically for continuing to incite rage against the legally-elected Biden Administration.

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In a court hearing on Thursday to determine if a Trump supporter who claimed god called him to assist in Trump’s attempted overthrow of the government should be released from jail, Judge Amy Berman Jackson noted that Trump and right wing media outlets were still inciting action against the government. Judge Jackson’s concern was over an alleged Trump insurgent who said he was ready to take up arms in a revolution if needed. Judge Berman rightly noted the danger saying:

“It’s not as if the effort by some political leaders and media figures to stoke this sort of anger has abated in any way, Isn’t it fair to say that the same political issues and the same political concerns are being pumped out into the airways on a daily basis?”

On Thursday, Department of Justice prosecutors argued in filings that Trump’s fascist rebels must be kept incarcerated due to the “persistent danger inspired by Trump.”

The DOJ prosecutors explained to a judge that they are pursuing more right-wing militia members and Trump supporters “who said they want to continue in similar violent endeavors [to the January 6 insurrection] until the current [Biden] administration is overthrown.”

The prosecutors specifically referred to a Trump devotee who, in late January, posted a picture of Trump he claimed was his idol. The devotee, Nathaniel DeGrave, drove across country with two other fascists, a weapons cache and a communication plan. The prosecutors told the court in writing that:

“The defendant is of course entitled to his political preferences. But given his prior acts of traveling across the country with weapons to ‘stop the steal’ and interfering with the peaceful transition of power on behalf of his idol, and his idol’s continued inflammatory rhetoric about a stolen election, the defendant continues to pose a concrete and articulable threat to the community.”

Earlier in the week, Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a written opinion that kept a Trump insurgent accused of dragging and beating police in the Capitol attack in jail. Judge Sullivan raised some of Trump’s recent comments in a written opinion Tuesday that kept one of the men accused of dragging and beating police on the Capitol’s terrace securely in jail.

“The Court is not convinced that dissatisfaction and concern about the legitimacy of the election results has dissipated for all Americans. Former President Donald J. Trump continues to make forceful public comments about the ‘stolen election,’ chastising individuals who did not reject the supposedly illegitimate results that put the current administration in place,”.

Judge Sullivan had to reiterate his concern two days later in a hearing for another Trump insurrectionist in the same case. He said:

“The unfounded allegations are out there, and they’re being made constantly by the former President Trump.,”

Judge Sullivan’s remark prompted a defense attorney to condemn Trump’s lies as “absolutely reprehensible,” and to express a seemingly desperate hope that “somebody try to stop the lying.”  No-one can stop a pathological liar from lying, but they can use the court’s to send the filthy liar to jail.

No matter how often Trump supporters, fascist Republicans and right-wing media personalities claim the First amendment protects their and Trump’s nonstop lies about the election, there is Supreme Court precedent to punish the fascists severely for inciting violence.

In a 1919 Supreme Court case, Schenck v. United States the Court ruled that no, not all speech is protected by the First Amendment “free speech clause.” In that case Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is credited with the reference to “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” as analogous to speech creating a danger to the public.

Fifty years later in  another SCOTUS case, Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) the full weight of Schenck was diminished somewhat by limiting the scope of what is considered “banned speech to that which is most likely to incite imminent lawless action; such as inciting a riot,” or an attempted coup d’état against the United States government. (author bold)

It is highly likely that both Facebook and Twitter are well aware of their culpability in any future violence against the government incited by Trump in their recent decisions to ban the treasonous cretin from their platforms.

What is not certain is why the Department of Justice is not taking swift action to muzzle Trump by arresting and imprisoning him for seditious conspiracy in the January 6 attempted coup and continued Big Lie that incites his devotees to want to overthrow the legally-elected Biden Administration.

When two federal judges and DOJ prosecutors warn that Trump, Republicans, and right-wing media continue posing a clear and present danger to the domestic security of the United States, it is high time to begin jailing the traitors and muzzle them like the enemies of state they are.

Rmuse

Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.

Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.

Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.