TRUMP AND REPUBLICANS TO DEMOCRATS: "WE'RE GOING TO LOCK YOU UP"

Donald Trump, who fancies himself the victim of “lawfare” by Democrats, once again threatened on Tuesday to weaponize his government against political opponents if he wins back the White House, suggesting in a Newsmax interview that he would seek to jail the “nasty, vicious people” who have wronged him. “They’re crooked as hell,” Trump said of the Democrats he baselessly claims have unjustly engineered his historic conviction. “It’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to,” he continued. “And it’s very possible that it’s gonna have to happen to them.”

…Trump isn’t alone in talking about imprisoning MAGA foes; Steve Bannon told Axios that Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA who prosecuted the Trump hush-money case, “should be—and will be—jailed” if Trump wins in November. The threats of prosecution also are not limited to Democratic officials; Trump has also openly fantasized about imprisoning journalists.

This shouldn’t be dismissed as mere bluster; it speaks to his authoritarian aspirations, to the grave danger he poses to democracy. The system weathered that storm once already, but there’s no guarantee it would do so a second time—particularly as he vows “retribution” and surrounds himself with sycophants more willing, and perhaps better prepared, to help him execute his plans.

Republican allies of Donald J. Trump are calling for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony conviction in New York.

…The intensity of anger and open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics. What is different now is the range of Republicans who are saying retaliation is necessary and who are no longer cloaking their intent with euphemisms.

….Stephen K. Bannon, the former chief strategist to Mr. Trump, said in a text message to The New York Times on Tuesday that now was the moment for obscure Republican prosecutors around the country to make a name for themselves by prosecuting Democrats.

Mr. Bannon was convicted in a federal prosecution for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena in the Jan. 6 investigation, and faces trial in September in a New York state court — before the same judge who oversaw Mr. Trump’s trial — in a charity fraud case.

“There are dozens of ambitious backbencher state attorneys general and district attorneys who need to ‘seize the day’ and own this moment in history,” Mr. Bannon wrote.

…Some veteran Republican lawyers have sought to dress up the need for such retribution as a matter of constitutional principle. Among those calling for eye-for-an-eye prosecutions is John C. Yoo, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor best known as the author of once-secret Bush administration legal memos declaring that the president can lawfully violate legal limits on torturing detainees and wiretapping without warrants.

“In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents,” Professor Yoo wrote in an essay published by The National Review.

He added: “Only retaliation in kind can produce the deterrence necessary to enforce a political version of mutual assured destruction; without the threat of prosecution of their own leaders, Democrats will continue to charge future Republican presidents without restraint.”

Mr. Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill are less bothered about finding a high-minded constitutional rationale.

“President Biden should just be ready because on Jan. 20 of next year when he’s former President Joe Biden, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” said Representative Ronny Jackson, a Texas Republican and close Trump ally, in an appearance on the pro-Trump network Newsmax.

Some of the rhetoric has gone even further.

…“Not just jail, they should get the death penalty,” said Laura Loomer, a far-right and anti-Muslim activist with a history of expressing bigoted views, in a podcast appearance after the verdict. Ms. Loomer, a onetime Republican nominee for a House seat in Florida, is not officially part of the Trump campaign. Mr. Trump, however, has praised her as “very special,” invited her to travel with him on his private plane and has met with her at his private clubs.

Former president Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized his conviction in New York and suggested that his political opponents might face similar prosecution, even as he also said it would be “terrible” to jail his former rival Hillary Clinton.

Trump made the comments Tuesday night on the conservative network Newsmax, days after a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to an adult-film actress before the 2016 election. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, had falsely claimed in another recent interview that he never called for Clinton to be jailed.

“I said, ‘Wouldn’t it really be bad? … wouldn’t it be terrible to throw the president’s wife and the former secretary of state — think of it, the former secretary of state — but the president’s wife into jail?” Trump mused Tuesday on Newsmax.

“But they want to do it,” Trump said, appearing to refer to his opponents. “So, you know, it’s a terrible, terrible path that they’re leading us to, and it’s very possible that it’s going to have to happen to them.”

“It’s a terrible precedent for our country,” he said of the New York case against him at another point in the interview. “Does that mean the next president does it to them? That’s really the question.”

…Trump has made payback for opponents central to his campaign, at one point declaring to a crowd: “I am your retribution.” In private, has told advisers and friends that he wants the Justice Department to investigate specific former aides and allies who are now critical of him, The Washington Post previously reported. And he has promised to appoint a special prosecutor to scrutinize Biden and his family.

1. Trump is promising to abuse the system. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee is talking about deliberately trying to prosecute his perceived political foes, not because there’s evidence of them doing anything wrong, but because he was held accountable for his own crimes and feels the need to retaliate….

2. Trump already tried do in the recent past what he’s promising to do in the near future. While in office, the Republican went to great lengths to weaponize federal law enforcement in the hope of seeing his opponents prosecuted without cause….

3. Republicans are on board. If there was a point when GOP officials were uncomfortable with the idea of Trump deliberately abusing the powers of the presidency and the levers of power to retaliate against his domestic enemies, that point has since passed: Too many Republican policymakers are now enthusiastic proponents of retaliatory prosecutions based on conspiracy theories that don’t make any sense.

4. The logic is stark raving mad. To hear Trump tell it, fair is fair: Since he was prosecuted by critics, it stands to reason that he can return the favor if he’s returned to power. But that’s not how any of this works. If a police officer arrested a thief caught in the act of stealing a car, it does not mean that the thief would be justified in trying later to arrest the police officer….

5. Trump is proving Biden right. Biden and his re-election campaign are eager to make the case that Trump is an authoritarian who intends to undermine our justice system and abandon the rule of law. The more the Republican talks about prosecuting his foes without cause, the more he proves Biden right.