Proof: Trump Is Complicit In Hate Crimes

Do you have to pull the trigger to be held responsible for a murder? Of course not. A person complicit in a murder may not have wielded the weapon, but he or she can be an accessory to the deadly crime. A complicit person escalates the actual commitment of a murder to a point of no return. To exacerbate the crime or even to ignore its potential development can be criminal complicity.

Complicity in criminal law refers to when someone is legally accountable, or liable for a criminal offense, based upon the behavior of another. Criminal complicity may arise in the following situations with the intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense:

1. a person procures, induces or causes such other person to commit the offense; or
2. a person aids or abets such other person in committing the offense; or
3. having a legal duty to prevent the commission of the offense, a person fails to make an effort he is legally required to make.

Donald Trump is complicit in hate crimes – including the murder of those who oppose his white nationalist views. I realize this is a shocking, extremely accusatory statement. However, I am prepared to defend my view of Trump and advocate for his removal as President of the United States.

Before he was president, Trump …

1973 – Violated the Fair Housing Act when Federal officials found evidence that Trump had refused to rent to black tenants and lied to black applicants about whether apartments were available, among other accusations.

1976 – Allegedly discriminated again against black applicants by telling them apartments weren’t available – the Justice Department sued the Trump Management Corp.

1989 – Called for the deaths of the Central Park Exonerated Five and then advocated “maybe hate is what we need if we're gonna get something done." Trump in a 2013 tweet, indicated he still considered the men guilty. And after Ava DuVernay’s Netflix show on the case aired in mid-2019, Trump refused to alter his stance.

1989 – Said: “I think sometimes a black may think they don’t have an advantage or this and that. I’ve said on one occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I really believe they do have an actual advantage.”

1997 – Admitted that comments attributed to him calling black people “lazy” were probably true – “Laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.”

1992 – Paid a $200,000 fine on behalf of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino because it transferred black and women dealers off tables to accommodate a big-time gambler’s prejudices. The first-person account of at least one black Trump casino employee in Atlantic City suggests the racist practices were consistent with Trump’s personal behavior toward black workers.

1993 – Said in congressional testimony, some Native American reservations operating casinos shouldn’t be allowed because “they don’t look like Indians to me.”

2005 – Pitched what was essentially The Apprentice: White People vs. Black People. He said he “wasn’t particularly happy” with the most recent season of his show, so he was considering “an idea that is fairly controversial — creating a team of successful African Americans versus a team of successful whites. Whether people like that idea or not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world.”

2010 – Opposed the “Ground Zero Mosque,” a proposal to build a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, near the site of the 9/11 attacks. On The Late Show With David Letterman, Trump argued, referring to Muslims, “Well, somebody’s blowing us up. Somebody’s blowing up buildings, and somebody’s doing lots of bad stuff.”

2011 – Pushed the unfounded nativist rumor that Barack Obama was a secret Kenyan Muslim. He even sent investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama’s birth certificate and argued maybe Obama wasn’t a good enough student to have gotten into Columbia or Harvard Law School while demanding Obama release his university transcripts.

2015 – Launched his campaign in 2015 by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” who are “bringing crime” and “bringing drugs” to the US.

2016 – Argued that Judge Gonzalo Curiel – who was overseeing the Trump University lawsuit – should recuse himself from the case because of his Mexican heritage and membership in a Latino lawyers association. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who endorsed Trump, later called such comments “the textbook definition of a racist comment.”

There were nearly 900 hate incidents across the U.S. in the 10 days following the 2016 election, a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center found. Those attacks included vandals drawing swastikas on a synagogue, schools, cars and driveways; an assailant beating a gay man while saying the “president says we can kill all you faggots now”; and children telling their black classmates to sit in the back of the school bus. In nearly 40% of those incidents, the SPLC found, people explicitly invoked Trump’s name or his campaign slogans.

As president, Trump has …

2017 – Signed an executive order – the first version of his Muslim travel ban – that discriminated against Muslims and banned refugees. The order restricted travel to the United States by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen and drastically cutting back refugee admissions.

2017 – Said 15,000 recent immigrants from Haiti “all have AIDS” and that 40,000 Nigerians, once seeing the United States, would never “go back to their huts” in Africa. Trump vulgarly called for less immigration from Haiti and Africa and more from Norway.

2017 – Said repeatedly that “many sides” and “both sides” were to blame for the violence and chaos that ensued during the white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, suggesting that the white supremacist protesters were morally equivalent to counterprotesters that stood against racism. He also said that there were “some very fine people” among the white supremacists.

2017 – Repeatedly attacked NFL players who, by kneeling or otherwise silently protesting during the national anthem, demonstrated against systemic racism in America. Trump called them “bitches.”

2017 – Issued a memo updating immigration enforcement guidance, massively expanding the number of people subject to detention and deportation. The guidance drastically increased the use of expedited removal and essentially eliminated the priorities for deportation.

2018 – Reportedly asked, in reference to Haiti and African countries, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” He then reportedly suggested that the US should take more people from countries like Norway.

2018 – Referred to some undocumented immigrants as “animals” and later said they would “pour into and infest our country ” (during a White House meeting). He also claimed, without evidence, that migrants were bringing diseases into the country.

2019 – Was referred to as a symbol of white identity and common purpose by a far right gunman who murdered 51 Muslims in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand — and left behind a document describing Muslim immigrants as “invaders.”

2019 – Allegedly inspired four men who were arrested for a plot to attack a small Muslim community in upstate New York – one of them, according to the Daily Beast, “was an avid Trump supporter online, frequently calling for ‘Crooked Hillary’ Clinton to be arrested and urging his followers to watch out for Democratic voter fraud schemes when they cast their ballots for Trump in 2016.”

2019 – Tweeted that several black and brown members of Congress – Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) – are “from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe” and that they should “go back” to those countries. Three of four of the members of Congress whom Trump targeted were born in the US.

2019 – Tweeted accusations that Elijah Cummings, the House Oversight Committee chairman and Democratic congressman, neglected his “rat and rodent infested mess” of a congressional district. “No human being would want to live there,” Trump wrote of Cummings’s district, in response to Cummings calling conditions at the U.S.-Mexico border “inhumane.”

Trump also …

2017 – Hired a Nazi sympathizer, Sebastian Gorka, as an adviser,

2017 – Employed Kris Kobach, known as “the most racist politician in America,” to advise him on voter fraud.

2017 – Placed the Justice Department in the hands of an attorney general who Congress previously determined was too racist to serve as a federal judge, Jeff Sessions.

Worked to dismantle anti-discrimination laws.

2017 – Released a list of hard-line immigration principles – a list of demands that included funding a border wall, deporting Central American children seeking sanctuary, and curbing grants to sanctuary cities, effectively stalling any possible bipartisan agreement on a bill to protect Dreamers.

2018 – Attacked Maxine Waters, U.S. Representative from California: “I said it the other day, yes, she is a low IQ individual, Maxine Waters. I said it the other day. High – I mean, honestly, she's somewhere in the mid-60s, I believe that.”

2018 – Attacked April Ryan of the Press Corp – "You talk about somebody that's a loser," Trump said of Ryan, a White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks who is African American. "She doesn't know what the hell she's doing."

2018 – Failed to meet a court-ordered deadline to reunite children and families separated at the border.

It is time to remove Donald Trump from his bully pulpit. He has legitimized, normalized, and emboldened hate. After he became president and put his unabashed bigotry on display, his election spawned an exponential rise in hate crimes. His endless campaign rallies spark racial violence.

A recent study by scholars from the University of North Texas (2016) has shown that “counties that had hosted a 2016 Trump campaign rally saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes over comparable counties that did not host such a rally.”

Trump incites hatred against gays also. In 2017, Trump spoke at the Values Voter Summit, an event organized by the Family Research Council, whose anti-LGBTQ activism has earned them the designation of a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He became the first president to appear at the gathering, and the contents of a swag bag given to attendees is a perfect illustration of why his predecessors were wise to avoid the hate fest. Included inside was a flier advertising what it called an “important new book” called The Hazards of Homosexuality, by the anti-LGBTQ group MassResistance.

In 2018, reports show under the Trump presidency hate crimes incidents have spiked by 17 percent this year alone with antisemitic attacks rising by double digits.

Trump almost daily it seems spews rhetoric that encourages others to hate and to discriminate. He has praised citizens for attacking journalists, praised police for “roughing up” arrested suspects, and repeatedly verbally attacked anyone who doesn't agree with his agenda. And, it is important to note his policies have mostly targeted the poor, undocumented immigrants, trans people, and people of color. He is the quintessential symbol of the man who yells “Fire!” in a crowded theater for the principal purpose of creating panic. Trump is a present danger and an accomplice to violence.

And now …

On the morning of August 3, 2019, a gunman at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, shot and killed at least 20 people before surrendering to the police. By all accounts, Patrick Crusius, the 21-year-old alleged shooter, is a fan of President Donald Trump and his policies.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “a Twitter account bearing the suspect’s name contains liked tweets that include a ‘BuildTheWall’ hashtag” and “a photo using guns to spell out ‘Trump.’” Federal authorities are treating the El Paso shooting as a case of domestic terrorism, according to the US Attorney for the Western District of Texas.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, presidential candidate said: “The individuals who do the shootings are responsible, but I do think Trump's rhetoric has fueled more hate in this country.”

More presidential candidates weighed in:

Former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke placed some blame on the president for the shooting while speaking in El Paso, which he represented when he was in Congress. O'Rourke said: "He is a racist, and he stokes racism in this country. We've had a rise in hate crimes every single one of the last three years. During an administration where you've had the president call Mexicans rapists and criminals."

Sen. Cory Booker said: “When Donald Trump uses words like “infestation,” “invasion” and “shithole countries” – When he refuses to condemn Neo-Nazis and white supremacists – Trump is giving license to this kind of violence.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders, called on Congress to pass "common sense gun safety legislation" and said, "to reject this dangerous and growing culture of bigotry espoused by Trump and his allies."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “We need to call out white nationalism for what it is – domestic terrorism. It is a threat to the United States, and we've seen its devastating toll this weekend. And we need to call out the president himself for advancing racism and white supremacy.”

In the meantime, Donald Trump, guilty of complicity, shows no signs of curbing his bigotry or even acknowledging the evil emboldened by his racist rhetoric. The blood splattered on the streets of America attests to the truth. That truth is that a 21^st century American president is a white nationalist who should be held accountable for his participation in mass murder.

Why do I believe this? He is legally accountable. Trump (1) induces other people (his doting minions) to commit the offense; (2) he aids others (his party) to commit the offense; and most importantly; (3) he has a legal duty (as president) to prevent the commission of the offense. He perpetrates the crime with more than sufficient malice. As responsible citizens, we must see that he is charged, and as decent human beings, we must remove him from office ... finger on the trigger or not.