Even after a stinging rebuke at the polls last week, and ahead of an announcement about his 2024 plans tonight, former President Donald Trump continues to pose a significant threat to democracy. Though he planned, promoted, and participated in a widespread effort to overturn the 2020 election, he has yet to face accountability for any of his illicit activity. Between his extensive election lies, ongoing legal and financial entanglements with authoritarian regimes, ties with dangerous far-right extremist organizations like QAnon, Trump is a danger to our freedoms and institutions – and this only scratches the surface of the danger he poses. He even openly encourages his supporters to harass public officials and take election administration into their own hands. The former President is not above the law and must be held accountable for his continued threat to our freedoms.
1) Trump Has Not Been Held Accountable.
One of the core principles of our democracy is accountable governance. Two years after leaving the White House, former President Trump still has yet to face accountability for any of his illegal actions. Yesterday, Trump did not show up for a deposition testimony before the January 6 Committee investigating his role in the attack on the Capitol – three days after suing the Committee in an attempt to avoid a subpoena. Likewise, Trump has been working to forestall an indictment over his mishandling of classified documents taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago as well as an expansive Department of Justice inquiry over his involvement in the violence on Jan. 6, not to mention his ongoing legal battle in New York over tax fraud. In Georgia, he continues to denounce the Fulton County grand jury probe as a so-called “political witch hunt” for investigating his interference in the 2020 presidential vote count. No one is above the law, even a former President, and Donald Trump’s efforts to derail investigations and legal proceedings ultimately circumvent accountability and threaten our democratic norms.
2) Trump Is the Election Denier In-Chief.
Two years after the 2020 election, former President Trump continues to insist (without evidence) that it was fraudulent, rigged, and stolen. In 2020, he unleashed a relentless wave of disinformation targeting election officials, absentee voters, and high-turnout areas like Atlanta and Philadelphia. Trump planned, promoted, and paid for the violence at our Capitol on Jan. 6, and his scorched-earth campaign against Americans’ right to choose remains a grave threat to our democracy to this day; throughout the midterm election cycle, he has been following the same playbook. In Arizona alone, Trump has turned to Truth Social to spread baseless conspiracy theories about election administration, calling the election “an unreliable joke!” and demanding a new election. Donald Trump has supported dozens of election deniers this cycle, from Doug Mastriano to Adam Laxalt – and there can be no doubt that he will do everything he can to resist the will of voters in 2024.
3) Ongoing Legal & Financial Entanglements With Authoritarian, Anti-Democratic Regimes.
Trump’s ongoing legal and financial entanglements with foreign leaders of authoritarian, anti-democratic regimes pose a significant threat to democracy. Earlier this week, the Trump Organization struck a lucrative real estate deal with a Saudi-based real estate company in Oman, the first since Trump left the White House. The Trump administration was marked by numerous scandals surrounding the former President’s business holdings. Under his watch, visiting foreign dignitaries from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and China spent more than $750,000 at the Trump hotel in D.C. in an effort to get on his good side and influence the administration – only a fraction of the estimated $4.5 million that the hotel reportedly received from foreign governments during Trump’s tenure. The Trump corruption complex only seeks to enrich itself by working with foreign adversaries. Trump’s continued pursuit of corrupt business deals with dangerous, anti-democratic leaders further demonstrates how far he is willing to go just to grow his own wealth.
4) Ties to Dangerous, Far-Right Extremist Organizations Like QAnon.
Time and time again, Donald Trump has shown his willingness to engage with extremist groups working to undermine democracy by uplifting dangerous conspiracy theories. Just last night, the former President used his platform to amplify ludicrous claims about a secret cabal running government affairs. Since Jan. 6, Trump’s ties with right-wing extremists like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers have become increasingly salient. Throughout the midterm election cycle, he embraced fringe far-right figures linked to QAnon through an “America First” coalition that was co-founded by prominent QAnon influencer Wayne Willott (aka Juan O. Savin), described as the voice of a “proto-fascist movement” in the Republican Party. In September, Trump shared an illustration of him wearing a QAnon symbol on his lapel, captioned with the QAnon slogan “the storm is coming” in a reference to his role as a central figure in the outlandish conspiracy, which paints his political opponents as satanic pedophiles. As a core part of the QAnon narrative, Donald Trump’s continued engagement demonstrates his commitment to extremist, anti-democratic ideologies.
5) Rallying His Supporters To Take Election Administration Into Their Own Hands.
Donald Trump spent months organizing a well-coordinated network of election deniers to threaten voters and election officials ahead of the midterm elections. He sent a wave of his MAGA Republican supporters to harass and threaten poll workers and officials with violence in the weeks before Election Day. Right-wing organizations led by some of his closest allies like Michael Flynn, Steven Miller, and Cleta Mitchell trained thousands of MAGA operatives to work in local election administration offices, planting partisan election judges and poll watchers trained to ignore local election rules, gather intel about local voting systems, and report back to Trump and his allies. They instructed supporters to inundate offices with waves of identical records requests and even recruited law enforcement officers as poll watchers – some of whom showed up to voting precincts armed with handguns and Kevlar vests. Donald Trump has built a well-coordinated movement bent on disrupting our elections and undermining the will of voters, and he has no plans to change.
