Donald Trump, please proceed!
Judge Chutkan has set a hearing for this Friday morning to decide whether to issue a protective order against Donald Trump, barring him from publicly discussing sensitive aspects of the criminal case against him. But Trump announced in a speech on Monday that he intends to violate any such protective order.
I have two words for Trump: please proceed. No really, by all means, go ahead and violate a protective order issued by the judge overseeing your criminal trial. See how quickly that leads to a full gag order, and when he violates that, pretrial incarceration.
I said over the weekend that Donald Trump had begun showing all the signs of someone who’s concluded he can’t win and is actively trying to get himself finished off. His threats against prosecutors, and his attack on key trial witness Mike Pence, only helped ensure that the judge will issue a protective order. If Trump goes through with violating the protective order, he’ll soon be eating his meals off a jail tray.
We’ll see if Trump really is feeling self destructive enough to violate the protective order once it comes down, or if he reverts to his usual cowardly position of threatening to do bold things before falling back. That’s up to him. But if Trump does decide to violate the protective order, then more power to him. It’ll only serve to actively accelerate his downfall.
Donald Trump knows darn well that these kinds of antics can’t possibly help him in any way, and can only serve to finish him off faster. If he keeps up his antics, it’ll be a clear sign that he knows his downfall is inevitable and is trying to help make it happen as soon as possible. So Trump, by all means, please proceed.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report