The lawsuit filed by protesters roughed up by Trump security in 2015 needs a deposition from him on Monday.
Plenty of “I can’t remember” possible in this video deposition, but there will be so many more to come as he’s dodged them for so many years.
A New York judge has ordered former President Donald Trump to give a videotaped deposition next week in a lawsuit by a group of protesters who allege that Trump and his security team assaulted them during a 2015 rally against his hateful rhetoric about Mexican immigrants.
The order by Bronx state Supreme Court judge Doris Gonzalez, which ABC News first reported Thursday, says that Trump must appear for a deposition on Oct. 18 at 10 a.m. Eastern, “or, in the event of illness or emergency, on another mutually agreed to date on or before” Oct. 31. The former president is expected to record the deposition on Monday in New York City’s Trump Tower, according to court papers.
The lawsuit by several protesters of Mexican descent names Trump, the Trump Organization, his former head of security Keith Schiller and four unnamed members of Trump’s then-security team. Schiller became director of Oval Office operations under Trump in 2017, and later that year, the Republican National Committee hired him as an adviser on security for the 2020 convention.
The lawsuit stems from a Sept. 3, 2015, protest outside Trump Tower over the then-presidential candidate’s inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants. Trump repeatedly blamed undocumented immigrants for the United States’ problems and called people crossing the border from Mexico criminals and rapists. The xenophobic rhetoric during his campaign only intensified when he became president.
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2 charges filed against planners, special counsel appt'd (@ejeancarroll case conflict?), etc. Def attys get involved along w/ their staff on behalf of witnesses, targets & subjects, all of whom have family/friends. This is why @RepAdamSchiff @tribelaw, myself, others are worried.
3 We have not heard a peep about any fed investigation of Trump. Compare this to the investigation/prosecution taking place by
@ManhattanDA. We don't know everything that is going on but there surely is important progress being made including charges filed against AW/Trump Org.
4 Mueller obstruction & Stormy Daniels payoff cases are fully investigated but no charges. Manafort & others could be charged w/ fully investigated federal crimes not covered by their corrupt pardons but nothing so far.
5 So consider the above before thinking that Garland is actually doing anything at this point bc I don't think he is other than perhaps confidential staff mtgs about the possibility of pursuing Trump, et al. I believe Garland to be a weak, ineffectual AG w/ horrendous judgment.
6 Trump continues to inflict significant injury daily on our democracy & is enabled by his GQP/RWM accomplices, along with 50M deranged cult members. This damage could soon be irreversible if he/others are not soon held accountable. Trump says he likes Garland. I don't blame him
Donald is, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, an intuitive fascist with an uncanny ability to exploit the revanchist bent in his party. In this way, he is of great use to Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, who, counterintuitively (at least from the perspective of party leaders who are supposed to believe in and support democracy), have continued to cede him both power and influence.
Theirs is a last-gasp attempt to rig the system even more drastically and permanently in their favor. Given the stakes, it’s not surprising that they would be pulling out all of the stops and following the playbook of a man who is willing to cross any line, destroy any norm, and commit any crime.
After a lifetime of cynically using temper tantrums to get his way, abusing lawsuits in order to crush the opposition, and strategically deploying other people’s money to inflate his worth as a means of garnering relevance and support, Donald understands perfectly that what energizes his base and him enervates the rest of us.
The media continue both to normalize the threats of violence and Donald’s ongoing ascendance in American politics as they also keep asking the wrong questions. They are so invested in the horse race that they fail repeatedly to inform Americans what is at stake—specifically, in this case, about the very real dangers facing American democracy—and instead speculate about whether a twice-impeached, two-time popular vote losing wannabe autocrat is going to run again in 2024. And if that is, indeed, the most important question they believe they should be asking, then perhaps they could, at the very least, explain why his doing so would be so dangerous to this country’s survival.
His most recent threat, delivered via that Wednesday statement, is just another temper tantrum designed to coerce the Republican Party not simply to conduct “audits” in all states but to protect his terribly fragile ego. His compulsion to punish those who fail or refuse to support his delusions overwhelms his ability to think strategically. In order to get Donald to stop holding voters hostage in the next two elections, his party is going to have to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. At this point, it’s a sucker’s bet to assume they won’t at least try in order to assuage him. But trying won’t be enough for their perpetually enabled leader. They’ll have to succeed.
How ironic would it be if, by convincing a significant number of Republican voters not to engage in the democratic process, it’s Donald who ends up saving American democracy?
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