Members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have warned America for three years to take former President Donald Trump at his word.

Now, as Trump is poised to win the Republican presidential nomination, his criminal trials face delays that could stall them past Election Day, and his rhetoric grows increasingly authoritarian, some of those lawmakers find themselves following their own advice.

In mid-March, Trump said on social media that the committee members should be jailed. In December he vowed to be a dictator on “day one.” In August, he said he would “have no choice” but to lock up his political opponents.

“If he intends to eliminate our constitutional system and start arresting his political enemies, I guess I would be on that list,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose). “One thing I did learn on the committee is to pay attention and listen to what Trump says, because he means it.”

Lofgren added that she doesn’t yet have a plan in place to thwart potential retribution by Trump. But Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who has long been a burr in Trump’s side, said he’s having “real-time conversations” with his staff about how to make sure he stays safe if Trump follows through on his threats.

“We’re taking this seriously, because we have to,” Schiff said. “We’ve seen this movie before … and how perilous it is to ignore what someone is saying when they say they want to be a dictator.”

  • quink@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Non-American just double-checking I’ve got his right…

    Private citizen makes actionable credible threat to unlawfully detain legislators, legislators choose to do nothing for about half a year before slowly murmuring without specifics other than “yeah he said it” and “I think he means us”.

    You OK USA? Just checking in.

    • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      There is, unfortunately, no law against saying you’re going to be a power abusing jackass. And the Republicans have decided that if he gets into office, they’ll protect him from impeachment and removal no matter what. His lawyers have literally argued that the president can order assassinations of their political rivals.

      So no, we’re not okay.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There is, unfortunately, no law against saying you’re going to be a power abusing jackass.

        I would argue that Trump committed sedition and terroristic threats. The trouble is that everyone in the Federal government is either too chickenshit or too traitorous themselves to prosecute.

      • quink@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I see. I should have my lawyers argue buying a $1,000,000 house for $0 is reasonable, that way a deal for $500,000 is perfectly reasonable. In the same way that threatening to illegally detain is a halfway compromise between nothing and threatening murder.

        And it seems that imprisoning political opponents goes beyond carting down a hill in a shopping trolley which is what we here overseas associate with “jackass”, but what do I know.

    • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      We are not okay. Nothing will happen to him about it, though. He can be literally court ordered to not talk shit about courtroom staff or families, then talk shit about them, and he gets nothing other than a reduced bond and an extension to pay that.

    • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      No we’re not ok.

      On the one hand moderate and liberal voters, the DNC, establishment Democrats, centerist corporate news stations, past presidents and Biden himself are talking about how dangerous Trump is. He cannot be allowed to win.

      Okay, sounds serious. Serious enough to make some big moves in order to get the votes necessary to win by a comfortable margin? If you check out Biden’s insistence on continuing to ship weapons to Israel the answer is “no”.

      And really this encapsulates the problem with so called moderates and liberals. When faced with a choice between left or right when the center cannot hold they just fuck around, stall or outright sabotage leftist efforts. Effectively cementing a rightward victory and then blaming it on leftists.

      It’s pretty pathetic how often they play this game and considering they actually do seem sincerely worried about Trump it’s bewildering why they aren’t seeking more cooperative efforts with leftists and progressives. They remain steadfastly confident stern lectures, as if leftists and progressives owe their votes, are all that is necessary.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        It doesn’t help that the largest employers in the US (Gov & USPS) bar their employees from involvement even at the local level if anyone can announce their party affiliation.

        If you go further down the list of employers, it’s a bunch of people who are mostly too overworked to have the time to vote…

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Why not both? I think everyone towards the left should consider some firearms. When history repeats itself Donald will be executing the socialists first. I do hope the dim bulbs of America get a clue before November, but I don’t know if we should trust that they will.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          You do what you want, I’ll be looking at you guys from a first world country in the meantime, as if MAD didn’t show us how stupid the American live for weapons is.

    • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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      I agree with the ideals behind socialism more than any other political ideology. I own a gun. I don’t think it would do me a bit of good if a modern government decided I should be dead.

      • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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        Why do people assume individuals are planning on defending themselves from the full force of the government? There’s a whole chasm of situations between “The power structures in place leave me in peace” and “The power structures in place have decided to move with their full weight against me specifically.”

      • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Not if you’re just one individual, but the security forces of a state are always vastly outnumbered by it’s subjects. And just knowing that many average people are armed can make authoritarians hesitate I think.

  • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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    What charges will he have them arrested for? I don’t think that the president can just demand that people be arrested.

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      They also can’t tell people to storm the Capitol and try to overthrow an election they lost.

      They also can’t just take classified data when they’re voted out of office and sell it to the Saudis.

      They also can’t fire the FBI director for investigating the White House.

      They also can’t with old military aid from another government because they won’t fabricate evidence against their political rivals.

      They also can’t collude with state officials to throw out votes.

      They also can’t use campaign funds for hush-money payments.

      There’s a lot a President can’t do that Trump has done.

  • JokeDeity@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    His cult will eat that shit up, completely forgetting he promised to lock up Hillary Clinton and they all ate that up too.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      Yup, I highly doubt he’ll actually do it. I really don’t believe he actually cares that much about politics, he just wants his name repeated in every household.

      That said, they are credible threats, and they should be treated as such.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlM
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    LMAO I love how all the libs who’ve been salivating at the idea that Trump might get jailed are now appalled at the idea that Trump would jail his opponents. This is what happens when you start weaponizing your legal system. And before you come here to tell me that the charges against Tump are totally legitimate, I guarantee you that when Trump goes after his opponents, he’ll have no trouble finding dirt on them because all US politicians are corrupt as fuck.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      he’ll have no trouble finding dirt on them because all US politicians are corrupt as fuck.

      And this is the problem with "both sides"ism.
      “Sure these Republican politicians are corrupt as fuck, but all politicians are corrupt as fuck. How do I know? Look at the Republicans!”

      They tried this with the whole impeachment of Joe Biden: start an investigation on bullshit and surely they’ll find something because everyone is just as corrupt as they are.

      They found nothing.

    • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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      Letting corrupt politicians go to jail is the opposite of weaponizing the legal system. Letting ONLY everybody but the corrupt politicians go to jail is weaponization.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      The difference being that trump is a criminal who BROKE THE FUCKING LAW COUNTLESS TIMES. He committed multiple frauds, this is not an 'if", he did, period. He sexually assaulted at least.one person, proven, likely many more. This is not a question, this happened. He stole too secret documents from the government, refused to return them, his them and gave them away to god knows who. None of this is open for debate. Other people releasing secret government documents are in prison for life, trump is still free, last I checked.

      None of this has to do with politics, his political opponents had nothing to do with this, this is all his own fucking doing.

      Should I talk about January 6th? I recall trump tweets from the days leading up to that, I remember what he wrote, I remember preparing popcorn to watch the mayhem unfold. I remember him egging them on. EVERYONE INVOLVED IS OR IS GOING TO JAIL. Trump is still out there, still free. Nothing of this has to do with political opponents, these people were judged by the US law and jailed for their crimes.

      Nearly all of trumps cronies friends and people who worked for him are or have been jailed for proven crimes. Nothing to do with politics.

      What does trump want to do? He wants to jail his opponents because they are his opponents. Reality check: being a political opponent is NOT a crime, unless you have a dictatorship, which ding ding ding, trump literally said he wants to have. His words, not mine.

      Seriously, I don’t get it, I don’t get your mental gymnastics. You says that trump will jail them because they are criminals, but WHAT CRIMES? If they committed crimes, they’d already be in jail. These trump cronies are in jail because they committed crimes. Commit a crime, you go to jail. Political colors have nothing to do with that. You literally claim “he will find something”, are you kidding? Are you that daft?

      Come on already, stop behaving like a child.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlM
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        Buddy, your legal system won’t even prosecute literal pedophiles on Epstein list, and here you are pretending that it’s going after Trump because he’s a uniquely terrible criminal. Grow up child.

  • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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    Kind of rich how you guys are against arresting your political opponents after what is currently happening to trump and the jan 6th prosecutions. You guys dont give a shit about justice, you just want to win, and its going to screw all of us.

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        From what I see, the people in control are not good or acting like the grown ups we want. But the targeted prosecutions are going to make everything much worse.

    • Holyginz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Grow a brain, then reread the stupid that is your comment before interacting with humans again.