The Washington Times ponders the possibility of Donald Trump fleeing the country once he is out of office and facing potential criminal charges.
What a time to be alive.
President Trump potentially faces a torrent of criminal charges when he leaves office, including charges linked to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, making prosecutors worry that he is a flight risk.
Mr. Trump’s real estate empire extends to multiple luxury properties in countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the United States. And Mr. Trump himself publicly mused in October that he’d leave the country if he lost to Democrat Joseph R. Biden.
Douglas McNabb, a private attorney with expertise in international extradition defense, said that if criminal charges are brought, Mr. Trump fits the bill for becoming a fugitive from justice.
“He’s got money. He’s got property. He’s got access,” Mr. McNabb said. “The government would argue that he’s a flight risk.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
If charged, Mr. Trump could flee to any number of properties he owns around the world. He owns a luxury hotel and tower in the United Arab Emirates and an unfinished hotel project in Azerbaijan, two countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the United States.
But Mr. Trump may also be protected if he goes to his country club in Scotland or his resort in Ireland. Extradition is a notoriously difficult process even when countries have a solid agreement.
“He’s not going back to New York and he is not going to enjoy the comfort at Mar-a-Lago he would have in the pre-Capitol-ransacking world,” said retired Brig. Gen. Peter Zwack, a former Army intelligence officer. “I’ll bet the feasibility of fleeing has come up because, in my mind, it is the only way to avoid instant accountability and reckoning.”
Some even speculate that Trump, the most anti-immigrant, anti-refugee President in decades, could declare himself a political refugee fleeing persecution:
The president could also seek political asylum, arguing that he would be a political prisoner if he returned to the U.S.
It would be up to the country whether or not to grant asylum. Some countries could reject the request fearing alienating themselves from the Biden administration, while other countries might enjoy the opportunity to thumb their nose at the U.S.
“This is a guy that will fashion himself as the exile-in-chief,” Mr. Zwack said. “I don’t think a lot of countries are going to want to take the heat for that unless it is a true adversary.”
What are the odds he’ll actually do this? Pretty small. But the odds of him inciting his followers to storm the U.S. Capitol Building seemed pretty small in mid-November.
Once he doesn’t have access to Air Force One anymore, Trump still has his own Boeing 757 - capable of transatlantic flight - available. It’s in the process of being taken out of storage right now. I’m just sayin’ is all.
I’d hate to see him escape justice. On the other hand, maybe his militia supporters would follow him wherever he goes and live in a gated compound or something? Let Azerbaijan deal with them.
While the outgoing President may be looking for a new home home, his cult followers are looking for a new social media home.
I’ve read that Christian music stores used to have charts directing people to the CCM equivalent of popular bands. (“If you like Motley Crue, try Stryper.”) According to Slate, as extreme right-wingers find themselves booted off the likes of Twitter and Facebook, some alt-right copycat apps are filling the void.
My sincere apologies to Stryper for comparing them to Gab and Parler. Seriously, “To Hell With the Devil” is a banger.
While many prominent pundits and lawmakers on the right have raged against these enforcement actions, claiming that Big Tech is silencing conservative voices, most of them are still able to complain about it on major sites. It’s primarily the violent and conspiratorial elements of the pro-Trump movement that have had to migrate. So where will they go?
It’s unclear where the majority of these conspiracy theorists and sedition-minded MAGA fans will settle, but leading candidates for this second home currently include Gab (a Twitter clone notorious as a hub for racist and anti-Semitic users), Telegram (mostly an encrypted messaging platform), Rumble (a YouTube competitor that’s increasingly popular among the right), and thedonald.win (a Reddit-like forum for Trump supporters). Notorious imageboards like 8kun and 4chan also remain online, though the graphic content and arcane user interfaces make the platforms inaccessible to many. Mike Rothschild, a QAnon researcher and author of The World’s Worst Conspiracies, is skeptical that a critical mass will end up gathering at any of these sites in the long run. “You don’t have liberals to troll on Gab or Parler. It’s just a giant echo chamber,” he said. “I think that’s going to get really boring for these people. They like fighting.”
One notable destination for far-right users is Telegram, which in addition to encrypted messaging allows public-facing channels. Mother Jones reports that the Proud Boys–organized Telegram channel amassed 6,000 followers in just four hours on Sunday, and that other Telegram channels associated with the hate group also gained thousands of followers shortly after the deplatforming of Parler. So far, Telegram has banned a few of these channels, which motivated others to back up their messages on the platform. Russian dissident Pavel Durov founded Telegram in 2013 as a service dedicated to free speech. It was initially popular among pro-democracy activists in places like Iran and Hong Kong, but it would eventually become a tool for white supremacists in the U.S. Telegram is based in Dubai.
At the moment, Telegram is attracting pro-Trumpers who want to stage further acts of violence in the run-up to Biden’s inauguration. NBC News reported on Tuesday that extremists in Telegram chatrooms have been calling on others to assault government officials on Jan. 20 for a “round 2,” with some of them distributing instructions on how to manufacture and conceal homemade guns and bombs. The platform has been hosting white supremacist discourse for months, though NBC notes that it has become more violent following the Capitol riot. Army field manuals and guides on how to convert Trump supporters to neo-Nazis have been circulating, and users are pumping one another up to “shoot politicians” and “encourage armed struggle.”
Durov likely never anticipated that radical right-wingers - with Putin in their corner, no less - would use an app he created for Russian dissidents to plot the overthrow of American democracy. And, speaking of unintended consequences, I hope the mass de-platforming from mainstream social media sites doesn’t end up making it harder to keep track of these guys.
First-Degree anti-anti-Trumper Stephen L. Miller does have a point when he writes, “if your aim is to stop America descending into civil conflict, it’s hard to think of a less effective method than forcing millions of people to abandon public platforms and instead use some segregated messaging system.”
That doesn’t mean I’m opposed to what Twitter and Facebook have done - in their sandbox, their rules apply. I became much more sympathetic to Amazon’s position when I saw the Parler posts (“parleys”) to which they took offence. And I really can’t see anything the government could do that wouldn’t itself be a gross infringement upon freedom of expression.
But I can see the great de-platforming coming back to bite us, if the crazies are organizing where we can’t see them so easily.
The world waits, with bated breath, to find out where the two-time impeachment champion will end up:
According to Rothschild, one of the few things that could attract a sustainable presence of pro-Trump conspiracy theorists on another lesser-known platform would be the president deciding to send out his messages there. “If Trump said, ‘I’m going to Gab, and I’m only going to put new posts on Gab,’ then everyone goes to Gab,” Rothschild surmised. “He hasn’t done that yet. He hasn’t picked out a new home.” (Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly blocked an attempt by some White House officials to set up accounts for the president on fringe sites such as Gab.) There is indeed currently a leadership vacuum in the pro-Trump insurrection movement. Q, the shadowy leader of the QAnon conspiracy theory, hasn’t posted a message to his followers since early December. Major QAnon influencers have also dispersed. L. Lin Wood Jr., the pro-Trump lawyer who spread Q-related conspiracy theories, tried, after being banned on Twitter, to reestablish his presence on Parler before the entire site was deplatformed. Joe M, another Q influencer, has also taken up residence on Gab. With their leaders running in every direction, it’s becoming more and more difficult for QAnon believers and other pro-Trump extremists to figure out where to go.
Much will depend on whether Trump still has a quality internet connection after he flees the country.
As for Twitter, it arguably hasn’t gone far enough. It should delete more accounts. Specifically, it should delete everyone’s account, destroy its algorithm and apologize to the entire world.
David Quintavalle didn't do it.
The retired Chicago firefighter from Mount Greenwood — whom social media trolls called a "terrorist" and accused of fatally wielding a fire extinguisher that killed a cop as a mob of Trump-supporting insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — was grocery shopping and celebrating his wife's birthday in Chicago, Patch has learned.
Twitter exploded with unsubstantiated claims Tuesday that Quintavalle — who retired from the fire department in 2016 after 32 years — was the bearded "#extinguisherman" in a surveillance video wearing a "CFD" stocking cap wanted for questioning and "soon to be arrested" by the FBI regarding the fatal beating of U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.
[…]
By Tuesday night, Quintavalle began getting angry calls from people saying he's a "f------ murderer" who belongs in jail. TV news reporters had staked out his house. Chicago police dispatched a patrol car to keep watch overnight, as well, his lawyer said.
Some folks got ridiculed for tweeting that Quintavalle wasn't "the guy" and his facial features don't match those of the man wanted for questioning by the FBI. One post claimed that tweets disputing Quintavalle's involvement in the U.S. Capitol insurrection were pushed by trolling Twitter "bots with practically no followers coming out of the woodwork."
Broke: “Punch Nazis.”
Woke: “White people fighting the actual, literal, original Nazis is problematic.”
I guess said 14-year-old didn’t watch the rest of the movie. The numbers of people that died in that war and what it did to survivors are unimaginable for a lot of people today. The reminders are more physically present in Europe, as there are still zones where the soil is full of remains and unexploded ordinance...but young people in North America should also have some basic awareness of history so it doesn’t repeat itself.
The lightning speed and anonymity of social media lend a different dimension to finger-pointing and rumour-spreading. By giving preference to the sensational, social media hand the megaphone to the wrong types of users. Simultaneously, those who stand up for what’s right may well be underrepresented...and therefore not make themselves heard enough. Social media platforms exercise a huge amount of influence over what we are aware of, and should re-think their methods to give a more balanced representation of what their users actually think.
Trump’s plane may be ready, but Scotland for one may not be keen to receive him. Hopefully he won’t do more serious damage first.