By
Lee Brown and
Steven Nelson
March 24, 2023 10:14am
Updated
Donald Trump on Friday threatened “death and destruction” if he’s criminally charged in New York — writing the shocking social media warning after posting an image of himself holding a baseball bat next to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s head.
“They are HUMAN SCUM!” the 76-year-old former president raged in one post asking why Bragg “refuses to do the right thing and ‘call it a day?’”
Trump is seeking a rematch against President Biden in 2024 and previously used heated language ahead of actual violence — most notoriously on Jan. 6, 2021, when he told thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” to prevent certification of Biden’s Electoral College win, which they proceeded to do by smashing into the building and battling with police.
Trump shared the image of himself holding a baseball bat — with Bragg’s hands up — on his Truth Social platform Thursday as he devoted his day to attacking the prosecutor for pursuing a case over the “hush money” payout to porn star Stormy Daniels. The bat image was pulled from an article that he shared but was not removed.
He kept on raging until the early hours of Friday with continued incendiary name-calling.
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The former president shared the image, part of a linked article, to his Truth Social on Thursday.“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country?” he asked just after 1 a.m.
“Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely [sic] hates the USA!”
He continued posting until 2 a.m. — then started again after 9 a.m., writing: “PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!”
His latest images — especially the baseball bat image — quickly sparked a Bronx cheer online, with few coming out to bat for him.
CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen tweeted that “threatening a prosecutor is a crime in NY. In fact MULTIPLE crimes.”
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who testified for Trump’s defense during his first impeachment for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, has repeatedly sought to warn the former president off threatening postings.
“[M]any of us have criticized the reported indictment as deeply flawed and politically motivated,” Turley tweeted Friday. “However, that will be addressed by the courts. The rule of law will be protected by the bench, not the bat, in our constitutional system.”
On Thursday, Turley blasted Trump for writing in all caps, “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!”
“Given the violence on 1/6 and riots in various cities, our leaders have to avoid reckless rhetoric,” Turley wrote. “Being peaceful is not just a legal obligation but a civic duty of citizens.”
Others called Trump “a violent, Pathological criminal” who is “dangerous, unhinged, and running free to incite violence in America.”
“Enough really is f–king enough,” one person told their more than 90,000 followers.
Former MSNBC host Keith Olberman tagged the Justice Department as he raged: “ARREST TRUMP NOW.”
He accused Trump of having “issued repeated stochastic terrorist calls for his cult to ‘remove’ the ‘animal’ Alvin Bragg – and use a baseball bat.
“He’s trying to get this man killed. Period. Enough,” he told his 1 million followers, comparing Trump’s bat image to “a movie murder scene” and part of a plot “as disgusting as Charles Manson.”
He called the former president “an active, mortal threat” to those investigating him “and all witnesses involved,” saying he must be immediately busted with “no perp walk, no bail.”
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Trump first said last week that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday, which came and went without any word of charges. Instead, the grand jury was postponed on both Wednesday and Thursday.
Manhattan prosecutors have been presenting evidence to the grand jury since late January in connection with the $130,000 hush money payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before Trump’s shocking victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006, which Trump has denied.
Former Trump lawyer and ex-con Michael Cohen alleges he made the payment at Trump’s direction. Bragg reportedly plans to charge the ex-president with falsifying business records for allegedly writing off the payment as “legal fees.”
The alleged offense would be a misdemeanor under state law, but Bragg wants to elevate it to a felony through an untested legal theory that would tie it to a violation of federal campaign finance rules, according to the Times.
