Let the idiot rant
On Wednesday morning I pointed out that because we’re on the verge of Donald Trump’s first criminal trial, he’s about to break out his greatest hits. He’s going to smear the prosecutors, attack the judge’s family, and threaten witnesses. But as we just got done seeing in the E. Jean Carroll and Letitia James civil trials, none of this is going to help Trump one bit, and he’s simply going to lose.
Sure enough, after Judge Merchan hit Trump with a trial-related gag order, Trump promptly made a social media post on Wednesday smearing the judge’s daughter. We’ll see if the judge concludes that this post violates the gag order. Remember, these things are solely at the discretion of the judge who issues the gag order (and the corresponding appeals court judges). It doesn’t matter if someone on TV or Twitter thinks the gag order was violated or not. It only matters how the judge interprets it.
But the larger point is that this kind of thing obviously doesn’t help Donald Trump, and can only possibly hurt him. Trump isn’t the first thug to try to get somewhere by smearing a judge’s family, and he won’t be the last. This kind of thing hasn’t worked for anyone else, and it won’t work for Trump either.
This kind of thing is not some strategy with some hope of working. Instead it’s more of a hapless temper tantrum on the part of a cornered criminal defendant who knows that he can’t successfully intimidate anyone involved with his criminal trial no matter what he tries. Trump is simply going to be convicted, and deep down he knows it.
