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False right-wing reports about Trump trial jury instructions fuel threats against judge

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  jbb  •  6 months ago  •  18 comments

By:   NBC News

False right-wing reports about Trump trial jury instructions fuel threats against judge
False reports about the jury instructions in former President Donald Trump's New York hush money trial have led to threats against Judge Merchan.

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T


May 30, 2024, 4:37 PM UTCBy Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — False reports about the jury instructions in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial have been spreading across right-wing media, leading to threats against the judge overseeing the case.

Several conservative news personalities, including some affiliated with Fox News, falsely claimed that Judge Juan Merchan, as one Fox News anchor put it in a viral post on X, "told the jury that they do not need unanimity to convict" Trump.

That's not true. Merchan instructed the jury on Wednesday that they "must conclude unanimously that a defendant conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means," adding that they "need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were."

That means that jurors have to agree unanimously that Trump committed a crime by engaging in a criminal conspiracy to falsify records with the intent to commit one or more other crimes in order to convict him. But jurors can choose from three options about what those other crimes were: violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act; the falsification of other business records; or the violation of tax laws. Those "unlawful means" aren't charges themselves and would not result in separate convictions, so jurors do not have to unanimously agree on them.

The jury instruction was complex and nuanced and some right-wing accounts ran with false reports.

In response to inaccurate reporting that Trump could be convicted without unanimous agreement that he committed a crime, one user on Gab, a site popular with far-right extremists, said Wednesday it was "time to find out where that judge lives and protest as the left calls it." Another user posted: "I hear bad stuff happens to judges in their driveways." On Telegram, one user called for "a military tribunal" for Merchan and on the official Telegram channel of Steve Bannon's WarRoom, a user said Merchan "and all involved" should be hanged.

Over on another pro-Trump forum, one user said "Merchan wants to be the merchant of death to sell more rope, except he could easily be selling the rope that hangs him." Another user added: "Treason. With the full penalty."

On X, after a right-wing influencer asked followers who among them wanted to see Merchan locked up for treason. Another user who identified himself as a Marine replied: "Let me handle the Justice System & be judge & Prosecutor, Immediate trial & Justifiable Punishments handed out, Funeral Directors get ready for a lot of Democratic Socialist Elites coming your way."

Trump continued making social media posts about the jury instructions on Thursday morning, quoting a Fox News commentator who called the Trump prosecution "an 'Alice in Wonderland' case with a Mad Hatter judge" where the "cherished principles of fairness" had been turned upside down.

Time and time again, legal proceedings in the four cases against Trump have resulted in violent threats and, in at least one case, actual violence. In August, Trump supporters posted the names and addresses of the Fulton County grand jurors who indicted Trump and 18 of his co-defendants. In August 2022, a Jan. 6 participant named Rickey Walter Shiffer posted calls for violence after the FBI searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and then fired a nail gun into an FBI field office in Cincinnati before he was killed by law enforcement.

More recently, Trump and his congressional allies falsely said that President Joe Biden plotted to kill Trump during the search of Mar-a-Lago based upon a disclosure of a standard FBI use-of-force form which limits the use of deadly force and which must be filled out for every operation. In fact, federal authorities specifically planned the search for a time when Trump was known to be out of state and contacted the Secret Service ahead of time to make sure the plan went as smoothly as possible. Even right-wing former FBI special agents who have called for the bureau to be abolished pushed back on the false narrative, calling the FBI use of force language "boilerplate" and showing frustration that viral misinformation on the right had forced them to be in the position of looking like they were defending the bureau.

Attorney General Merrick Garland last week called the lies about the use-of-force policy "false" and "extremely dangerous" and pointed out that the same standard operations plan was used in the search of Biden's own home (yet did not lead to conspiracy theories that Biden planned to have himself assassinated.)

Ryan J. Reilly

Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News.


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JBB
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JBB    6 months ago

Who would ever spread false and misleading information about Trump's jury instructions in order to anger and to inflame the most violent and dangerous MAGA extremists? Hmmm? Answer me! Who?

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
1.1  devangelical  replied to  JBB @1    6 months ago

verdict reached, not a hung jury...

 
 
 
Trout Giggles
Professor Principal
2  Trout Giggles    6 months ago

I really hope this is just a bunch of internet bullies puffing themselves up and trying to look manly. I really do hope

 
 
 
devangelical
Professor Principal
2.1  devangelical  replied to  Trout Giggles @2    6 months ago

meh, the death treats always start up when their mentally defective hero looks like he may be held accountable for his actions...

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
2.2  seeder  JBB  replied to  Trout Giggles @2    6 months ago

Threats of MAGA violence are now a fact of like and will remain so as long as He Who Must Not Be Named desires his return to power...

 
 
 
Right Down the Center
Masters Guide
2.2.1  Right Down the Center  replied to  JBB @2.2    6 months ago
Threats of MAGA violence are now a fact of like

It all started with the MAGA summer midnight riots and shopping sprees of 2020 where even the VP was helping post bail and few, if any were actually punished.

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
2.2.2  seeder  JBB  replied to  Right Down the Center @2.2.1    6 months ago

That is what they call a "False Memory" you are having...

original

 
 
 
Right Down the Center
Masters Guide
2.2.3  Right Down the Center  replied to  JBB @2.2.2    6 months ago

3euxk7.jpg

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
2.2.4  seeder  JBB  replied to  Right Down the Center @2.2.3    6 months ago

Nope...

original

 
 
 
Drinker of the Wry
Senior Guide
2.2.5  Drinker of the Wry  replied to  JBB @2.2.4    6 months ago

I hope that my eyes don’t look like that in seven years.

 
 
 
Right Down the Center
Masters Guide
2.2.6  Right Down the Center  replied to  JBB @2.2.4    6 months ago

290x89.jpg

 
 
 
JBB
Professor Principal
2.2.7  seeder  JBB  replied to  Right Down the Center @2.2.6    6 months ago

original

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3  bugsy    6 months ago

In pretty much all of these cases, they are nothing but keyboard warriors with no lives, unlike the leftists that "peacefully" demonstrated in front of SCOTUS houses, even showing up armed with duct tape, etc.

 
 
 
Jeremy Retired in NC
Professor Expert
3.1  Jeremy Retired in NC  replied to  bugsy @3    6 months ago
unlike the leftists that "peacefully" demonstrated in front of SCOTUS houses, even showing up armed with duct tape, etc.

Over something Traitor Joe voted in favor of.

 
 
 
Ozzwald
Professor Quiet
3.2  Ozzwald  replied to  bugsy @3    6 months ago
In pretty much all of these cases, they are nothing but keyboard warriors with no lives, unlike the leftists that "peacefully" demonstrated in front of SCOTUS houses, even showing up armed with duct tape, etc.

It is the "pretty much" part that people are concerned about.  If in doubt, go ask Paul Pelosi.

 
 
 
bugsy
Professor Participates
3.2.1  bugsy  replied to  Ozzwald @3.2    6 months ago

The dude that tried to whack Pelosi is a leftist.

 
 
 
Ozzwald
Professor Quiet
3.2.2  Ozzwald  replied to  bugsy @3.2.1    6 months ago

The dude that tried to whack Pelosi is a leftist.

jrSmiley_10_smiley_image.gif

 
 
 
Split Personality
Professor Guide
3.2.3  Split Personality  replied to  bugsy @3.2.1    6 months ago
DePape had a history of  mental health  issues and drug abuse; before the attack, he had embraced various  far-right conspiracy theories , including  QAnon Pizzagate , and  Donald Trump's false claims of a stolen election in 2020 . Online, he made conspiratorial, racist, sexist, and antisemitic posts, and pushed  COVID-19 vaccine misinformation . His blog also contained  delusional  thoughts. At his subsequent trial, DePape testified that he was motivated by conspiracy theories and had hatched a "grand plan" to target Speaker Pelosi and others. Attack on Paul Pelosi - Wikipedia

Yeah that's a bona fide leftist /s jrSmiley_54_smiley_image.gif jrSmiley_10_smiley_image.gif

 
 

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