Ex-prosecutor says Trump’s posts attacking Manhattan DA are crimes

New tonight, a threatening note and a white powder substance sent to the office of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. This after multiple threats, including bomb threats, were made against the court. And just a day after Trump posted this since-deleted image that shows him appearing to take a bat to Bragg. And warning that if he is indicted over the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, quote, potential death and destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our country. Kara Skinal is out front. Kara, more than reminiscent, of course, of what he said and tweeted before January 6th. What else do you know about the threat today to the DA and his office? Well, Aaron, sources tell us that a 911 call came in around noon that the DA's office had received a suspicious package containing a white powdery substance and a threatening letter to Bragg.

We're told that from the DA's office that this was then transported to the NYPD and the city's Department of Environmental Protection. They reviewed the substance and determined that it was non-hazardous. It's now at the DEP's lab. And the NYPD says the investigation to this is continuing. And as you say, this is part of a real kind of stepped up rhetoric by Trump, really beginning last week when he was calling for protesting. He was going to be arrested and charged. Of course, he wasn't arrested and charged.

But that didn't change the calculus. There have been, as you say, bomb threats that are non-credible, that were called in. There are bomb sweeps at the courthouses daily. And that there is just a general increase sense of security, whether it's for protests or for perhaps something even like this. But we've seen, I've been down on the ground all week, we've seen increase in NYPD personnel, increase in court security officers, just showing a little bit more vigilance around the area, particularly as Trump is raising the rhetoric on all these threats. And, of course, the grand jury meets again on Monday, where this investigation into Trump's role in the hush money will continue. Karen? All right, Kara, thank you very much.

Ryan Goodman is with me tonight, along with Karen Agnifolo, former chief assistant DA for then Manhattan DA SyVance. So, of course, I know you worked on this as well, criminal defense attorney now. So you did used to work at this office. So when you hear this today in the context of these Twitter threats and everything else that's happening, how troubled are you? Well, he has committed new crimes. These are absolutely criminal behavior on his part, with the posting the baseball bat image to Alvin Bragg's head, calling him an animal, and then calling for a death and destruction because it's just like January 6th. He knows what his words mean. He wasn't calling for peaceful protests.

This is a call to action to his supporters. And he has stepped over the line and committed multiple, albeit misdemeanors at this point, but he has committed multiple crimes. We'll see if he gets charged with them, but he has absolutely crossed a line. All right, does that impact the, an indictment here? I mean, I guess, I mean, Ryan, I guess what I'm saying is, you know, you've got, these are human beings involved, right? A DA is a human being, right? And he's going to, obviously he's trying to do what he thinks he can actually prosecute. But when you have someone making these threats and things like this happen, obviously it gets emotionally charged. I don't think it'll affect whether or not he decides to indict. I think in some sense that decision's probably been made long before these threats began one way or the other.

And so I think he'd line it up, but I do agree with Karen that I do now think he has to consider, does he add to the indictment? More charges. Additional charges, because he also would, by that way, send a signal that this has to stop. And you're also concerned about whether there could be a gag order, which would be incredibly complicated because talking about someone who is running for president, who's out there every day talking. That's right. So a very good, close example is Roger Stone when he was undergoing a trial and he put the picture and Instagram up of the judge in crosshairs. And that had crossed a line so that the judge said, we had a kind of a gag order, but now we're going to impose a full gag order. You may not use social media to talk about this case.

So given what Trump is doing, if you were currently under indictment, I could imagine this would be the next question, the next day at a hearing before that judge. And this looks into the direction it might go. But then as you say, it's such an unusual circumstance. It's not just that First Amendment free speech rights are on the other side of the equation. It's political speech by a political candidate for the highest office in the country. That's heavily weighed on the other side of the equation. So here we are on a Friday night, a week ago on a Friday night, we thought this could be happening, right? Or happen on Monday.

Is it still imminent in terms of an announcement if there is an indictment or if there is not an indictment, which I know is unexpected, but could be the case? Is that still something that could happen any day? I think it's going to happen Monday or Wednesday of next week. I think law enforcement is currently having discussions about security and when would be the safest and most convenient time for him to surrender. And I think based on that date will be then what day do they decide to go in and ask the grand jury to take a vote because too much time in between, you see what Trump is already doing. He's already causing his supporters to make death threats. He's himself making death threats. And white powder, all the things you're seeing, the bomb scares. So law enforcement is going to want to keep everybody safe.

And so they're going to wait to see and try to coordinate those two things as close to each other as possible. And okay, so Ryan, this comes on the heels of a legal blow today for Trump and another probe, special counsel. So a judge there ruled that a former top aides are not protected by executive privilege, so that they're going to have to come in and speak. That includes Mark Meadows, who would have to appear before that grand jury in the special counsel probe in Washington. So Mark Meadows, as we know, is central to everything. He was chief of staff. He was on the call with Brad Raffensperger, texted with a lot of GOP officials on the day of January 6th.

And that's just what we know, right? I mean, the whole point about Mark Meadows is what we don't know. So how significant is this ruling on executive privilege? I think it's hugely significant, especially because the Court of Appeals, if Trump decides to try to appeal, will probably just slap it down. We know this has happened already before. And the CNN has reported, for example, the former White House, the White House counsel and the deputy White House counsel also tried to do executive privilege, but then they testified. Mark Meadows, like you say, is central. One of the former January 6th staff committee members said that he was our MVP. Without him, we wouldn't have had the playbook.

And that's because he partially cooperated with them. This is about full cooperation under threat with the Justice Department. And I think he can reveal so many things across the gamut of issues. Has his path to stopping it run out? I mean, this is it. He now has to appear. It seems like it, yeah. Jack Smith seems to be able to get who he needs into the grand jury very quickly.

All right. Well, we shall see, because this is one of them waiting and waiting. And I think everyone stopped even holding their breath. All right. Thank you both so very much.

donald trump, us news, politics, erin burnett outfront, erin burnett, stormy daniels, alvin bragg