Members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have warned America for three years to take former President Donald Trump at his word.
Now, as Trump is poised to win the Republican presidential nomination, his criminal trials face delays that could stall them past Election Day, and his rhetoric grows increasingly authoritarian, some of those lawmakers find themselves following their own advice.
In mid-March, Trump said on social media that the committee members should be jailed. In December he vowed to be a dictator on “day one.” In August, he said he would “have no choice” but to lock up his political opponents.
“If he intends to eliminate our constitutional system and start arresting his political enemies, I guess I would be on that list,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose). “One thing I did learn on the committee is to pay attention and listen to what Trump says, because he means it.”
Lofgren added that she doesn’t yet have a plan in place to thwart potential retribution by Trump. But Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who has long been a burr in Trump’s side, said he’s having “real-time conversations” with his staff about how to make sure he stays safe if Trump follows through on his threats.
“We’re taking this seriously, because we have to,” Schiff said. “We’ve seen this movie before … and how perilous it is to ignore what someone is saying when they say they want to be a dictator.”
The FBI, DHS, ATF, or similar member of the alphabet army. The POTUS has a lot of minions with the authority to arrest you.
Which was the one shoving people into unmarked vans in 2020, DHS? That's the one it will be, I'd put money on it.
I don't think we ever got a real answer on that one, since the vans and the agents were unmarked. So just straight-up kidnapping.
Can the president simply order them to arrest people for no good reason?
Last time I checked, the alphabet agencies weren't Trump's "minions", and they actually didn't like him very much.
Yes. Just like you can. It's not hard to give an order.
If you want to know whether or not the agency will listen and obey... that's a whole other question and gets into dangerous territory when we know the POTUS loves being a dictator.
Then you checked wrong. The POTUS is the head of the executive and the alphabet agencies are within said executive. POTUS is at the top.of their food chain, same as the military. As I said, though, it can get arbitrarily nuanced when you ask if a given agent will obey an illegal order or not.