US President Donald Trump has escalated efforts to use the legal system against his political opponents, calling for criminal charges of “incitement of violence” against top Democratic lawmaker Hakeem Jeffries.
President Trump on Thursday shared a social media post attempting to link the House Minority Leader’s past comments to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, which prosecutors said targeted the U.S. president.
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“This lunatic, Hakeem ‘Low IQ’ Jeffries, should be indicted for inciting violence! The radical left Democrats actually want to destroy our country,” President Trump wrote.
Since returning to the White House last year, the US president has successfully pursued criminal charges against political opponents, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
Thursday’s post featured an image of Jeffries standing next to a poster that reads “Maximum War, Always, Everywhere” alongside a photo of the alleged press gala shooter approaching a security checkpoint.
But Jeffries’ statements and posters were not about political violence. The House minority leader was referring to the partisan fight over redistricting after Virginia voters approved electoral maps that favor Democrats.
Gerrymandering conflict
At an April 22 press conference, Jeffries welcomed the vote in Virginia, cited partisan mapping efforts and accused Republicans of starting a “gerrymandering war.”
President Trump has been publicly pressuring state Republican officials to draw U.S. House maps that will give Republicans a better chance of retaining a majority in Congress in November’s midterm elections.
Jeffries promised that while Democrats would respond in states they control, as they did in Virginia and California, they would also push back against maps drawn by Republicans.
“We are in the era of the greatest war of all time, everywhere,” he told reporters. “And we will continue to put pressure on Republicans in every state in the union to ultimately ensure a fair national map.”
Three days after the top Democrat’s remarks, an alleged gunman tried to run through a security checkpoint at a White House press dinner in what prosecutors say was an assassination attempt against Trump.
Republicans quickly cited Jeffries’ “war” remarks and condemned Democrats’ violent rhetoric.
But the Democratic lawmaker said last week that he stood by his comments over criticism from people he called “fake Republicans.”
“You can keep criticizing me for that. I don’t care about your criticism,” Jeffries said.
Democratic leaders may have borrowed the word “war” from Republicans. A New York Times article on gerrymandering last year said, “A person close to the president, speaking on condition of anonymity, candidly described the White House’s political strategy, succinctly summarizing it as ‘maximum war, anytime, anywhere.'”
Trump and Jeffrey conflict
President Trump’s call for the indictment against Jeffries on Thursday came after federal prosecutors secured another grand jury indictment of former FBI Director Comey, this time on charges of threatening to kill Trump.
Last year, President Trump posted a message to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi pressuring her to pursue criminal charges against Comey, New York’s James and several others.
Previous charges against Comey for lying to Congress had been dismissed. The judge also dropped the fraud charges against James and ruled that the special prosecutors in both cases were illegally appointed.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but the law prohibits death threats.
It is also a crime to “invite, command, abet or otherwise attempt to persuade” people to commit a crime. But it would be difficult to prosecute individuals for inciting public speech.
Critics have accused President Trump, who himself faced criminal charges after his first term, of trying to overturn the 2020 election, mishandling classified government documents and illegally paying adult film actresses, of weaponizing the justice system.
Mr. Jeffries has been a frequent target of Mr. Trump’s attacks. Last week, the president of the United States called the black Democratic congressman a “thug” and a “danger” to the country.
To coincide with Mexico’s Cinco de Mayo holiday on Tuesday, the White House released a meme of Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer wearing sombreros and holding a sign that read, “I love illegal immigrants.”
Schumer responded by superimposing a photo of Trump and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein wearing the same hat.
