In recent months, as the threat of a federal criminal indictment intensified, Donald Trump’s rhetoric about special counsel Jack Smith has become increasingly hysterical.
Initially, the former president was content to label Smith a “Trump Hater” and “political hit man” who shouldn’t be “allowed” to investigate him because someone Smith is related to doesn’t like Trump. But as the investigation progressed, the Republican’s rhetorical choices evolved.
Last November, Trump labeled Smith a “fully weaponized monster.” In January, the former president went further, calling Smith a “thug” in a “mental state of derangement” who “may very well turn out to be a criminal.” A month later, he condemned the special counsel as a “mad dog psycho.”
The former president has also accused Smith of overseeing “a Gestapo type operation,” as well as being an “animal” and a “lunatic.”
In the middle of the night on Saturday, Trump broke new ground, arguing by way of his social media platform that Smith is engaged in a “treasonous quest.” (The former president has spent years throwing around the word “treason,” which he seems to think means “stuff Trump doesn’t like.”)
And why, pray tell, did the Republican throw this particular tantrum? We’ll probably never know for sure, though it probably doesn’t help that the special counsel’s office is reportedly taking a closer look at Trump’s foreign business deals. The New York Times reported overnight:
Federal prosecutors overseeing the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents have issued a subpoena for information about Mr. Trump’s business dealings in foreign countries since he took office, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that the subpoena “suggests that investigators have cast a wider net than previously understood as they scrutinize whether he broke the law in taking sensitive government materials with him upon leaving the White House and then not fully complying with demands for their return.”
The Washington Post published a related report overnight with similar information. As Rachel explained on Monday night’s show, the special counsel’s office is apparently interested in the details of the Trump Organization’s dealings in seven countries — China, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman — starting in 2017, which was the first year of Trump’s term. To be sure, there are a lot of questions that do not yet have answers — at least answers that those of us outside of Smith’s office are aware of — including how and why an investigation into Trump taking classified documents would relate to the former president’s foreign business deals. That said, University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and an MSNBC legal analyst, told Rachel on the air last night that this line of inquiry has “potentially explosive consequences,” because as federal prosecutors “follow the money,” it raises the prospect of “some interesting connections, trails, motives, etc.” Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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