Trump is not happy with the protests that have taken place in many US locations over the past three days and nights.
At first he said the protesters were paid, though he didn’t say by whom. And he noted that the media should NOT be covering the protests:
Then he tried the tactic of declaring that the protests were small (and therefore, presumably, meaningless) :
He doesn’t like it. He’s very unhappy. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t yet hold the reins of power.
But I’m wondering what he might do about the protests on the basis of his coming power. And I’m wondering if any of that might be illegal, and if so, if the illegal actions might be discovered and exposed. And if this were to happen before the Electoral College vote, what might happen? Would it affect the November 8 election results? Would Pence become President if Trump were to be indicted?
Basically, Trump has at his disposal the promise of punishment, and the promise of reward.
[ul]
[li]He might want to try to stop all coverage of the protests on television, radio, newspapers, and their sites; and–here’s the tricky one–all major social media sites. [/li]
[li]He might want to try to get protests made illegal; this would probably involve convincing governors of each state in which protests are happening to declare states of emergency or something similar, with curfews imposed, restrictions on numbers of persons who can gather in public, and so on.[/li]
[li]He might want to try to get protesting made too painful to be continued, by prevailing on law enforcement leaders to step up arrests and head-breaking.[/li][/ul]
For all of these, he can remind decision makers that he will shortly have access to the trove of data stored by the NSA. With this being public knowledge he will be able to make any accusation against persons declining to help him out as requested–it won’t matter whether or not the accusations are true. He will be able to say ‘we will release information that you are a _____ _________ and say it’s verified in NSA data, and your career will be over–there will be nothing you can do to fight the accusation.’
This seems clearly illegal–if documented, of course. If Trump had his people approach someone who recorded the threat, it could mean trouble for Trump.
So he might prefer the ‘carrot’ to the ‘stick’–he might want to promise infusions of cash to come to the decision maker as an individual, and/or to the agency/government/website/entertainment conglomerate he’s having his people approach. This could be worded delicately, as in ‘we know you are a patriot and want to do the right thing for our nation, and surely you agree that people are becoming agitated by all this–why not simply stop showing it? (Or stop posting Tweets or Instagram pics about it, etc.) And we are hoping to do big business with you, by the way–there is a $5 billion-dollar contract we might be able to swing your way’ or such. Similarly with government and law enforcement leaders: ‘it’s bad for the USA, so why not stop it? And by the way, there may be a big federal grant coming your way if we can swing it for you…’
The legality of this seems questionable (I don’t pretend to be conversant with the laws involved). Of course an actual bribe, if provable, would hurt Trump. But the vague promise of a future contract to be awarded…I’m unclear about whether that could get Trump into trouble, and am hoping that someone more knowledgeable might read this thread and have an answer.
The protests seem likely to continue over the weekend. Trump won’t like it. He will want to do something about it.
Will he?
sources for the Tweets:
