Trump has sworn he'll get revenge on a long list of enemies.. so who will be first in the firing line?
By: Joe Hutchison (Mail Online)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Donald Trump will return to the White House carrying a long list of vendettas and the president-elect has vowed to clean house.
Since leaving the presidency after his first term in office, Trump has called for his political opponents to be fired, prosecuted and jailed.
But now, with a renewed mandate to lead the nation, Trump is in a prime position to dole out that punishment and exact revenge on those he believes have wronged him.
Here, DailyMail.com explores several individuals that Trump has had long-standing run-ins with who should probably have the most to fear.
From his first term in office he has made remarks in person and on social media in which he called for his political opponents to be prosecuted, jailed or even killed
Trump attends his campaign rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S., November 5, 2024
President Joe Biden
Trump has frequently branded President Biden as 'corrupt,' 'crooked' and the 'worst president in history'.
In June, Trump called for the 81-year-old Biden to be 'arrested for treason' in a message reposted to his Truth Social platform.
Before being arraigned last year for mishandling federal classified documents, Trump promised to appoint 'special prosecutor' to go after Biden.
'I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the USA, Joe Biden,' Trump posted in an all-caps tirade.
'The entire Biden crime family, and all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders and country itself.'
Vice President Kamala Harris
Trump has also escalated his personal attacks on election rival Vice President Kamala Harris, declaring she should be 'impeached and prosecuted'.
At a rally, Trump also branded Harris 'mentally impaired' and blamed her for what he described as an 'invasion' of migrants crossing the southern border.
He explained his rationale to the crowd in Erie, Pennsylvania: 'Crooked Joe Biden became mentally impaired.
'Sad. But lying Kamala Harris, honestly, I believe she was born that way. There's something wrong with Kamala,' he explained.
'I just don't know what it is but there is definitely something missing. And you know what, everybody knows it.'
Trump had frequently branded the current commander-in-chief President Biden as being 'crooked'
He has also escalated his personal attacks on rival Vice President Kamala Harris , telling a rally in September she should be 'impeached and prosecuted'
Trump claimed he was 'entitled' to personally attack Harris because she had 'weaponized the justice system' against him.
Former President Barack Obama
President Barack Obama, 63, and Trump have had a long and tumultuous relationship which stretches back more than a decade.
After Obama's election, Trump had frequently pushed suggestions he was not in fact born in the US - but rather in Kenya.
The dispute was eventually resolved, somewhat, when Obama was forced to releasing his birth certificate to quell the conspiracy theories.
There's even been speculation, denied by Trump, that his run for president was inspired by the roasting he received from Obama at the White House Correspondent's Dinner in 2011.
Obama joked: 'Now, I know that he's taken some flak lately, but no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald.
Obama points to the video screen as he starts his speech at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, Saturday, April 30, 2011.
'And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like, 'Did we fake the moon landing?', 'What really happened in Roswell?', and 'Where are Biggie and Tupac?'.'
Obama also mocked Trump's 'credentials' on his reality TV show Celebrity Apprentice.
For Trump's decision to fire actor Gary Busey from the among the contestants instead of rock singer Meat Loaf earlier that month, Obama quipped: 'These are the types of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir.'
Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump arrive for the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday, April 30, 2011
In 2019, Trump accused Obama of treason over the 2016 Presidential Election.
Trump said he believed that Obama had engineered a plot to spy on his own campaign, that led to the lengthy and explosive Russia probe.
In an interview at the time, Trump said: 'What they did was treasonous, okay? It was treasonous.
In August of this year, he then reposted a message on Truth Social calling for 'public military tribunals' for Obama.
Trump had frequently pushed suggestions that Obama was not in fact born in the US but rather in Kenya
Trump and Obama arrive for Trump's inauguration ceremony at the Capitol in Washington, USA on January 20, 2017
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton has long been in the crosshairs of Trump, and he vowed to go after her during their vicious race for the White House in 2016.
During his first campaign, Trump frequently led chants of 'lock her up' during his raucous rallies. He was referring to Clinton deleting thousands of emails from her personal server while she worked at the State Department.
During a presidential debate in 2016, he told her: 'If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.
'We are going to look into it. It's a disgrace, and honestly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'
Clinton replied: 'Its just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country.'
'Because you'd be in jail,' he retorted - much to the joy of the audience listening in.
Trump speaks as Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton listens during their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., October 9, 2016
In June of this year, Trump seemed to suggest that Clinton should face the same sort of prosecutions brought against him.
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
Trump has frequently called Nancy Pelosi 'crazy' and even ended his campaign last week by sensationally calling her a 'b****'.
In September, he said that Pelosi should face criminal charges in connection with her husband's sale of Visa stock before the Justice Department sued the company.
During a press conference, he said: 'Nancy Pelosi has a little problem because her husband sold their Visa stock.
'They had a lot of Visa stock one day before it was announced that Visa is being sued by the Department of Justice.'
Financial disclosures show Paul Pelosi had indeed unloaded 2,000 shares in the credit card giant on July 1. Three months later later the DOJ pursued the company for illegally monopolizing the debit card market.
He added: 'You think it was luck? I don't. She should be prosecuted. Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted for that.'
Closing out his final campaign speech he said: 'She is a bad, sick woman. She's crazy as a bedbug. She is a disgrace.'
Trump has frequently called Nancy Pelosi, seen here on Wednesday, 'crazy' and even ended his campaign last week by sensationally calling her a 'b****'
Trump debates with Nancy Pelosi, left, as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Vice President Mike Pence listen the Oval Office of White House on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018
New York Attorney General Letitia James
Letitia James got under the skin of the former president after she brought a lawsuit alleging widespread fraud against his business empire.
That case resulted in a judgement which saw him, his sons and their business ordered to cough up $450 million.
Attorney General Letitia James has earned Trump's ire by bringing a lawsuit alleging widespread fraud against his business empire
While he has appealed the case, Trump previously said that James should face prosecution for her part in the suit.
At a campaign rally in Iowa earlier this year he said she should be 'arrested and punished accordingly'.
Rolling Stonereported in March that lawyers for Trump had already drawn up plans to bring down James if he was reelected.
Mike Davis - a contender for Trump's attorney general - warned James he would 'put your fat a** in prison' if she continued her legal crusade against the president-elect.
Manhattan Justice Arthur Engoron
In a similar fashion, Trump has frequently attacked Judge Arthur Engoron while he presided over the case brought by James' office.
Trump at one point was ordered gagged during the high-profile trial after he attacked Engoron's clerk on his Truth Social platform.
He had posted a link to her private Instagram account before he deleted it. Trump said he too should be 'arrested and punished accordingly'.
Trump holds up a copy of a story featuring New York Attorney General Letitia James while speaking during a news conference, Jan. 11, 2024
Trump and Justice Arthur Engoron of the state Supreme Court listen to opening arguments from his lawyer Alina Habba
Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney
Liz Cheney had provoked the ire of Trump while she served as vice chair of the House select committee investigation the January 6 insurrection.
Cheney became a vocal supporter of Kamala Harris in recent months, and has said for years that Trump could not be trusted with power.
In March, Trump said on Truth Social that Cheney 'should go to jail,' and later reposted a message in June calling her 'guilty of treason'.
Last Thursday, he sparked outrage while speaking at an event alongside Fox News host Tucker Carlson after branding her a 'dumb war hawk'.
He said: 'She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay, let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.'
Democrats immediately criticized him for the comment but Harris took it a step further, saying Trump should no longer be in the presidential race.
Liz Cheney, daughter of Bush's former Vice President Dick Cheney, had already thrown her support behind Harris - alongside her father
Special Counsel Jack Smith
Special Counsel Jack Smith has spent years building a case against Trump for seeking to overturn the 2020 election and allegedly absconding with classified documents.
As such, he has become a frequent punching bag for the President-elect who has came out and said Smith should go to prison.
On posts to Truth Social, Trump has shared images which referred to him as 'Jackal Smith, a career criminal'.
They also added that Smith 'should be prosecuted for election interference and prosecutorial misconduct'.
Last June, after an indictment was unsealed showing photos of files scattered across Mar-a-Lago - Trump went after Smith and his wife.
He fumed: 'His wife is a Trump Hater, just as he is a Trump Hater—a deranged 'psycho' that shouldn't be involved in any case having to do with 'Justice,' other than to look at Biden as a criminal, which he is!'
Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks to the media after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records
After Trump was elected earlier this week, a source close to his legal team told DailyMail.com that they predict Smith would stand down.
The source said: 'I see everything pointing to dismissal and a resignation. I would not be surprised if in the next two or three days the government moves to dismiss. We're likely seeing the end of lawfare.'
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg
District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought the case that led to Trump's conviction on 34 felony charges relating to a hush-money scheme involving $130,000 secretly paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The cash had been paid to keep her quiet during the 2016 election about claims of a sexual encounter between the two.
Speaking during the trial in May, Trump said: 'There is a case to be made that the prosecutor should be prosecuted the district attorney should be prosecuted.'
After the jury delivered their verdict, Bragg said he had 'done his job' as a public servant.
Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen
As part of the Stormy Daniels case, the court heard from Trump's close associate Michael Cohen who testified in the case.
Seen as the prosecution's star witness, Cohen laid out how he had bought and suppressed negative stories for his boss.
'You handle it,' Cohen quoted Trump as telling him after a doorman touted around a false story that the property mogul had fathered an illegitimate child.
In cross-examination, Trump's lawyers accused Cohen of lying about a crucial phone call that tied Trump to the cover-up of the hush money payments.
As part of the Stormy Daniels case, the court heard from Trump's close associate Michael Cohen who testified
Trump's lawyer Alina Habba later said that Cohen had perjured himself in the court, saying: 'Cohen should be prosecuted for what he did in that courtroom.'
Trump then went on to share the sentiment on Truth Social, seemingly agreeing with the idea.
Former FBI Director James Comey
James Comey, who was unceremoniously fired by Trump in 2017, has been the subject of a series of stinging attacks by the President-elect for years.
In 2018, Trump branded him an 'untruthful slime ball who should be prosecuted' claiming that he put classified information before journalists.
The Justice Department declined to bring any charges against him after he was cleared of leaking sensitive material.
Trump had blasted a memoir released by Comey called 'A Higher Loyalty, which he said he was a pack of lies.
Within the first week of the book's release, it sold more than 600,000 copies, according to the New York Times.
In his now famous 'slime ball' tweet, Trump added: ''He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH.'
Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Oversight Committee to explain his agency's recommendation to not prosecute Hillary Clinton on July 7, 2016
Trump shakes hands with Comey during an event in the Blue Room of the White House in Washington, on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2017
While the attacks by Trump have quietened down in recent years it would not be outside the realm of possibility that he goes after Comey.
In 2022 it was announced that Comey, a lawyer, had signed a multi-million dollar deal to write fictional crime thriller novels.
Mark Zuckerberg
One anomaly in this list, which is a who's who of the Washington elite, is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who Trump had warned could face jail time.
Speaking in August, Trump pledged to imprison Zuckerberg if Facebook is found to have 'illegally' influenced US elections.
In a new book, Trump said he was 'watching him [Zuckerberg] closely' ahead of the presidential vote in November.
The book, called Save America, is written by Trump and is described as a coffee table book.
Trump says that while he was in office, Zuckerberg used to visit him and 'bring his very nice wife to dinners, be as nice as anyone could be'.
But Trump claims that Zuckerberg was actually mounting a 'plot against the President'.
He writes: 'He told me there was nobody like Trump on Facebook. But at the same time, and for whatever reason, steered it against me.
Trump claimed in a book that Zuckerberg was mounting a 'plot against the President' when he was in the White House
'We are watching him closely, and if he does anything illegal this time he will spend the rest of his life in prison - as will others who cheat in the 2024 presidential election.'
After Mr Trump's baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, he was suspended by Facebook and Instagram.
Both are owned by Zuckerberg's parent company Meta. He was allowed back on both platforms last January.
California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom
President Trump has been a frequent critic of Newsom, especially at his rallies, where he refers to the liberal governor as 'New-scum' and accuses him of destroying California and Los Angeles.
Presumably sensing his will be targeted by the Trump administration, Newsome on Thursday called for a special session of the legislature to to 'safeguard the state's progressive policies' and 'Trump-proof' California's state laws.
'The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won't sit idle,' Newsom said on Thursday.
Unknown people engaged in election fraud
In September, Trump posted a rant on Truth Social in which he threatened to target 'lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters and corrupt election officials'.
He reiterated his false claims about election fraud during his unsuccessful run for office in 2020.
Trump said: 'I together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election. It was a Disgrace to our Nation!'
'Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.'
'We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON'T!
'Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.'
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The Daily Mail is allegedly a respectable newspaper.
Here they are , for all practical purposes, encouraging Trump to indulge himself in retribution. Much of the "case" against ALL of these people is based on lies.
What is sickening is that we will have as PotUS someone who actually might do this. The electorate just handed a loaded gun to a vindictive child.
Keep him away from 5th avenue, what ever you do....cause children goin through puberty can be pretty wild with their loaded guns
No problem. Kyle Rittenhouse demonstrated that a MAGA may kill with impunity. And now the courts will be MUCH more MAGA.
Are you saying he'll use the DOJ to charge Democrats with crimes while excusing members of his own party (and himself) who did the same thing? Or will he send to DOJ officials to Republican states to help prosecute his opponents using statutes that no one has has ever been convicted under, for actions Trump himself committed?
Because that would be bad if he ever stoops that low.
Old and unused laws are still laws.
It would seem, then, that you'd be okay with Trump and the Republicans to use the law... creatively, shall we say... just as the Dems did, to go after political opponents?
yep, cause just where was that evidence....that Trump confessed to , like say having all those documents but it wasn't really a crime, because Trump, with his oh so highlly intelligent 'brain,
'was able to, get this, declassify the documents with out even looking at them, just 'thinkin' about them, Trump was able to empty out and declassify thousands of top secret files, just by thinkin about them, so we'll have to guess he's off the hook on that one, and heck, he wasn't really an empowered law enforcement special council anyways, cause on a unrelated Supreme Taco decision, ClarencevCoke Can Thomas, deckided to throw out there from left field, that Smith had not power to weild, anf who ever would be crazy enuff to suggest a potUS had the power or obligation to stop an officer beating riot/insurrection that threatened lawmakers and VP Pence from continuing till the third and final hour, of his WHite House of Power, cause upside down holding Bible thumper Trumperonly invited them all to stopthe eection STEAL of an art of a deal where about everyone else went to jail or needed bail, or was disbarred, or needed a pardon moi', cause if you didn't happen to have any Grey Pou Pon, you shirley musta herd, Fox agreed with the steal the election deal and it only cost them
$787,000,000.00 measly smackers, and speaking of smack hers, the adjudicated rapist and admitted pussy grabbin back stabbin 28 accuser strong Epsteins' buddy wanna be kong, would never wish to be KING, that was probably a Kamala drummed up thing a ma jing, as well, know ?
The question is not "Will he do this?"
OF COURSE, he will.
We will have to wait to see how far he goes... nothing more.
sure there is , have you seen his windblown hair >?
A popular saying comes to mind.
What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.
Not a good trend to be sure but it is what it is.