Donald Trump, now a convicted felon, has not been cowed or beaten back by the possibility of prison time – something that legal experts are suggesting is increasing in likelihood based on Trump’s recalcitrant and openly hostile and contemptuous behavior towards Judge Merchan, who presided over Trump’s New York criminal trial. Trump is escalating his attacks, calling Judge Merchan a “devil” during an unhinged speech last Friday, and in interviews and other communications attempting to incite his MAGA followers to commit acts of violence and mayhem in his name if he is put in prison for his crimes.
Trump’s propagandists, which include senior leaders of the Republican Party, have rallied around him in the aftermath of his felony conviction and are attacking the United States justice system, the legitimacy of the courts, and the rule of law. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a Trump MAGA supplicant, is openly pressuring the right-wing extremists on the United States Supreme Court to somehow find a way to void the New York hush-money election interference conviction. Republicans in Congress are also promising to launch (more) retaliatory false investigations into leading Democrats (and Manhattan District Attorney Bragg and presumably other law enforcement involved in Trump’s hush-money election interference trial).
