According to former prosecutor Dennis Aftergut, former president Donald Trump has an increasingly “erratic mind” following his recent posts on Truth Social.
Amid the 2024 election, in which former President Donald Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden will face off as both men each won a series of primary elections to become their party’s presumptive presidential nominees, Trump has often been known to take to his social media account on Truth Social to speak on the political atmosphere, often criticizing his political opponents.
In addition, Trump, who faces various legal troubles at both the state and federal level, has also taken to Truth Social to voice his innocence and opposition to the allegations made against him. Most recently, Judge Juan Merchan imposed a gag order against Trump after the former president made a series of public comments about Merchan and his daughter, Loren Merchan. Trump attacked Merchan’s daughter for her work in Democratic political circles and called for the judge to be recused from the case.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records over hush money payments to former adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep an alleged affair secret before the 2016 election. Prosecutors led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg allege the payments were part of a scheme to stop potentially damaging stories about the Republican from becoming public. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for 2024, has denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to the 34 charges against him in the case.
On Monday, Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, published an opinion piece, “How Violence and Intimidation Are Key to Understanding Trump” on The Bulwark, a news site on Substack that provides analysis and reporting.
In the piece, Aftergut discusses Trump’s continued social media posts as he states the former president’s mind has become “increasingly erratic.”
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s spokesperson via email for comment.
“You can see Trump’s increasingly erratic mind in his calls for violence and acts of intimidation. Such calls led New York State Justice Juan Merchan to impose a limited gag order on Trump last week to protect jurors and prosecutors in Trump’s upcoming criminal trial in Manhattan..Trump’s mind seems ever more chaotic. You can see it in his hours-long ranting and rambling campaign speeches.”
Aftergut continues to explain that Trump’s posting is often aimed at “amping up his base” amid the 2024 election, but he adds that the general elections are all about appealing to voters in the middle.
“Violence-inciting social media posts are almost certain to do the opposite. Yet Trump can’t help himself. There’s madness to his method, politically and psychologically.And his madness is a call to all of us for method. We need to be methodical in responding to him if we wish to preserve our safety and our freedom from Trump and his thugs,” Aftergut added.
Aftergut’s comments come after LaDoris Cordell, a retired judge who worked at the California Superior Court said the former president risks imprisonment over his online behavior.
Speaking on CNN on Monday, Cordell said Trump is “tiptoeing very close” to breaking the gag order and that many people think there are “double standards” regarding how he is treated by the courts.
“When he steps across that gag order line—and I do hope it will be expanded—there should be only one response: bring your toothbrush Donald Trump because you’re going to sit in a jail cell for a while,” Cordell said. “There has to be an immediate consequence when he defies a court order. That is a normal response. You cannot have a court system that is subjected to these kinds of threats and intimidation. Nowhere else has this ever happened and gone without any consequences and that has to change and it has to change now.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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