Ex-Trump Aide Says Truth Social Post Clearly ‘Intimidation’

A day after being arraigned in Washington, D.C. on four counts related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Donald Trump made an all-caps Truth Social post reading, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” That message, along with a campaign ad identifying the prosecutors in the criminal cases against him, is “chilling,” Stephanie Grisham said Friday on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront. “Legally, it doesn’t seem like it’s very smart. But how is that not intimidation?” the former Trump White House press secretary asked. She also wondered if someone would “have to get hurt before people take this kind of online intimidation seriously.” The judge overseeing Trump’s criminal trial in New York—as well as his family—reportedly received threats after the former president appeared in court there in early April and later that night criticized the judge and smeared Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg as a “criminal.” And in Georgia, Fulton County DA Fani Willis has reportedly been targeted by racist threats inspired by Trump, who has called her “racist.” For his part, former Defense Department special counsel Ryan Goodman didn’t go as far as Grisham, saying that Trump’s post was “ambiguous,” yet added: “I don’t think it’s ambiguous to some of his more violent supporters, and you can only imagine that some of these prosecutors will have to increase their security detail because this kind of rhetoric leads to death threats.”