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Team Trump is hitting hard on the fact that @KamalaHarris as well as some @JoeBiden staffers backed bail funds for arrested protesters. A legitimate issue? Not going to try to resolve that here, but.... /1 https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1300429829855158273">https://twitter.com/DonaldJTr...
It& #39;s bound to remind voters of Donald Trump& #39;s long history of promising, or talking up, legal fees for supporters who engage in outright physical violence against protesters at rallies. For instance... /2
Early 2016 Iowa rally: "if you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? ... I will pay for the legal fees. I promise, I promise." https://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-tells-crowd-to-knock-the-crap-out-of-protesters-offers-to-pay-legal-fees/">https://www.mediaite.com/online/tr... /3
Weeks later, Trump said he wanted to pay legal fees for a supporter who sucker-punched a protester being led out of his North Carolina rally: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/10/trump-once-said-he-would-pay-legal-fees-for-people-who-beat-up-protesters-now-that-its-happened-can-he/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-... /4
This after Trump had said, at the same rally: "See, in the good old days this didn’t use to happen, because they used to treat them very rough,” he said. “We’ve become very weak.” /5 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/donald-trump-fayetteville/473169/">https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...
Now, maybe all these offers to pay legal fees or bail are OK because everyone deserves the chance to mount a full legal defense, and lack of immediate cash should not spell the difference between jail and freedom pending trial. That might be a legitimate viewpoint! /6
Or maybe both sides should think harder about whether blanket offers of legal help might sometimes seem to encourage or condone bad behavior. That& #39;s not a crazy point of view either. /7
Or maybe there& #39;s some distinction to be made based on the nature of individual charges, whether it be physical assault, trespassing, failure to disperse, vandalism, assault on a law enforcement officer, or arson. To me, those seem very different in seriousness. /8
I& #39;m just having trouble seeing why Team Trump thinks it can open up this line of attack without seeing it turned right around on them. /9, efn
