Roving Periscope: Trump apes Imran Khan, threatens ‘potential death and destruction’ if arrested

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: In an escalation of verbal attacks on prosecutors over 24 months after his violent supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, attempting to prevent Congress from ratifying his loss in the election, former President Donald Trump on Friday warned there could be violence if he is indicted in New York.

He is behaving like former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, who has similarly been threatening the Shehbaz Sharief government which is trying to arrest him in multiple cases.

And both are holding rallies of their supporters in their respective countries on Saturday to muster support against arrests.

A Manhattan grand jury is expected next week to resume its investigation of him for potential crimes.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump asked how a former president could be charged with a crime given that “potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our country?”

Of late, he has been furiously posting on his social media platform criticizing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Black, and the other state and federal prosecutors who are investigating him in Washington, DC, and Georgia, the media reported on Saturday.

Amid AI-generated photoshopping and cartoons splashed across the media, Trump predicted last weekend that he would be arrested Tuesday this week in the New York investigation related to a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence during the 2016 campaign about an alleged sexual encounter that he denies.

The ex-President is also being investigated in Washington for his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection and his handling of classified documents.

A day after Bragg rejected a demand by House Republicans that he testify about his investigation, the New York grand jury was in recess on Friday and is expected to reconvene early next week.

Trump has labeled Bragg as racist and “an animal”, linking him to Democratic political donor George Soros, a frequent target of the right.

“Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath,” Trump said of Bragg.

Trump made his “potential death and destruction” warning on the eve of his first major rally of the 2024 Republican campaign on Saturday in Texas, a friendly locale full of symbolism. The rally will be in Waco, 30 years after federal law enforcement raided a cult headquarters and stoked anti-government sentiment among far-right extremists.

Bragg said in a statement to staff on Friday that some staffers had received “offensive or threatening phone calls” this week. He assured his office that increased security measures were in place and “safety is our top priority.”

“I am very sorry that you have had to endure these distressing disruptions to your work,” Bragg told them. The office is “well-prepared for any possibility,” he said. “We will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, which is what each of you does every single day.”

Trump also called for his supporters to “protest, take our nation back,” — a call similar to when he urged his supporters to assemble in Washington and march to the US Capitol in early January 2021 when Congress met to ratify Trump’s loss in the election and a violent mob stormed the complex.

Early this week, New York City police beefed up security outside Manhattan Criminal Court and Bragg’s office. But so far, protests have been minimal with only a handful of demonstrators turning up each day.

Trump set off security concerns Saturday last when he predicted on social media that he would be arrested and urged a “PROTEST.”

While a protest by a Young Republicans group Monday evening outside Bragg’s offices saw only a handful of demonstrators, on Tuesday a bomb threat was called in for the courthouse where a suit brought against Trump by the New York attorney general was being heard. The hearing was temporarily put on hold.

Since then, the NYPD has stationed officers to guard the Manhattan courthouses and added barricades and portable flood lights to illuminate the area at night.