Former President Donald Trump celebrated the Martin Luther King holiday with one of his most time-honored pastimes: ranting on social media.
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Trump unleashed a torrent of criticism, on Truth Social, against Jack Smith – the special counsel who the Department of Justice assigned to investigate both Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and his attempts to stay in office in after losing the 2020 election.
Even for Trump, the post was a lot. Take a look here:
“The FBI (Fake Bureau of Investigation) & the Department of Injustice, together with the Trump Hating Thug, Jack Smith, are interviewing, harassing, and subpoenaing people that work for me relative to the BOXES HOAX, & the ‘Peacefully & Patriotically’ speech I made at the January 6th protest of the Rigged and Stollen (sic) Presidential Election, where so many have been treated horribly and Unconstitutionally. This is a Gestapo type operation! Are they doing this to the Biden people? I don’t think so!”
(For the record: Attorney General did appoint a special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents; the Biden administration is receiving multiple subpoenas from the newly sworn-in Republican majority in the House of Representatives.)
Gestapo comparison absurd
I can appreciate that Trump feels he is being unfairly targeted. Off the top of my head, I can’t cite anyone who has been investigated, impeached, or prodded more.
Granted, Trump brings much of it upon himself, but I can understand Trump’s frustration.
Regardless, comparing the US Department of Justice to the Gestapo is fairly absurd.
As far as analogies go, if the DOJ is the Gestapo, then Attorney General Merrick Garland is Heinrich Himmler and President Joe Biden is Adolf Hitler.
The Gestapo was the Nazi state’s secret police force. Renowned as omniscient and omnipotent, the Gestapo inspired an environment of stark fear and paranoia. The Gestapo’s actions reinforced the pervasive idea that one needed to look over their shoulder; the Gestapo cracked down on Nazi political opponents, like the Communist Party of Germany, trade unions, religious dissenters, and homosexuals.
Of course, the Gestapo also played a key role in facilitating the Holocaust – during which 6 million Jews were rounded up and destroyed.
Donald Trump needs to back off: full stop.
At the end of World War II, the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trials, declared that the Gestapo was a criminal organization. So, the idea that Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice is Gestapo-adjacent is silly stuff, even by Trump’s standards.
DOJ investigating Donald Trump on Multiple Fronts
The House’s January 6th committee recently concluded an eighteen-month investigation, which concluded that Trump should be charged criminally for his involvement in the January 6th riots.
The House’s recommendation has no legal weight, of course – but the recommendation represents the first time in US history that the House of Representatives has formally recommended that a former president be prosecuted.
The DOJ is, in turn conducting its own investigation to determine whether to bring charges against Donald Trump for his role in the January 6th riots.
The DOJ is conducting an entirely separate investigation of Trump, too, relating to his alleged mishandling of classified documents. The FBI recovered classified documents in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and from a Florida storage unit.
The DOJ’s document investigation could yield criminal charges as well, meaning Trump is facing some significant heat from the DOJ. AG Garland has appointed special counsel Jack Smith to lead both investigations, which is why Donald Trump is letting Smith have it on social media.
Harrison Kass is the Senior Editor at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison lives in Oregon and listens to Dokken.
