Freedom is 'Closer and Closer' to Being Taken Away from Donald Trump: Ex-Republican in Congress

A former Republican congressman warned Saturday that Donald Trump is getting dangerously near to a point where he may cost himself his own freedom. Since appellate courts have stayed the gag orders put on him in criminal and civil lawsuits, Trump has gone on the offense even more, most notably using his Thanksgiving tweet to criticize the legal clerk for the judge in the former president's civil fraud trial. An appeals court stayed the judgment on November 16, citing "constitutional and statutory rights at issue." In the aftermath of the temporary hiatus, Trump wrote an angry letter on Truth Social on Thanksgiving, in which he called James "racist and incompetent," Engoron a "psycho," and the judge's clerk "Politically Biased and Corrupt."

As reported by Newsweek, Former Florida Republican congressman David Jolly was interviewed on American Voices with Alicia Menendez on MSNBC and questioned about Trump's attacks on the judiciary. He said, "Fascinating, look, in past years, his holiday messages have attacked socialists and Democrats and the deep state and this was an unhinged screed against prosecutors and judges and it gives you a little bit in terms of his state of mind. We continue to step closer and closer to Donald Trump possibly losing his own liberty either because of pretrial behaviors and attacks on prosecutors and judges or a conviction." He also mentioned, "I think we've seen it does not change the calculus for his election. I don't think he has a lead over Biden like the polls show because when people see his behavior, his behavior, they are reminded that he is an unstable, unhinged man, who should not be returning to the White House and that is enough to protect Joe Biden's lead going into a matchup."

As per recent reports, a court officer stated in an affidavit that the New York judge and clerk in the civil fraud case against former Donald Trump have received "hundreds" of threatening and harassing messages, including some antisemitic messages, as a result of Trump's recent attacks against them. The threats made against New York Judge Arthur Engoron and his legal clerk Allison Greenfield recently are "considered to be serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative," according to an affidavit filed by state court officer Charles Hollon. As per Huffpost, Hollon said that his team had evidence of pre-trial threats made via email, phone, and social media to Engoron, his workers, and his family. Hollon also claimed that Greenfield told him she gets about 20-30 calls a day on her personal cellphone and 30-50 messages on "combined sites of social media, LinkedIn, and two (2) personal email addresses," where she "has been subjected, on a daily basis, harassing, disparaging comments and antisemitic tropes." Hollon wrote that the number of threats and disparaging messages to Engoron and his staff decreased while the gag order was in place but increased after Trump violated the gag order on two occasions.