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By Sean O'Driscoll
Senior Crime and Courts Reporter
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The indictment of an Alabama man for threatening the prosecutor in Donald Trump's Georgia case should be a clear reminder to the former president to stop putting court staff at risk, a former federal prosecutor has said.
An unsealed indictment on Monday revealed that 59-year-old Arthur Ray Hanson II is charged with two counts of transmitting interstate threats. Hanson threatened both Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat in separate voicemails on August 6.
Willis indicted Trump and 18 others for alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election. The former president has pleaded not guilty and has called the multiple court cases against him part of a political witch hunt. Newsweek has sought email comment from Trump's legal team.
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The indictment says that Hanson threatened Willis because she intended to charge Trump with his fourth criminal indictment. Labat was menaced because he spoke to several media outlets about the former president on August 6, the day of the voicemails.
"When you charge Trump on that fourth indictment, anytime you're alone, be looking over your shoulder," Hanson said in a voicemail to Willis.
"If you think you gonna take a mugshot of my President Donald Trump and it's gonna be OK, you gonna find out that, after you take that mugshot, some bad s*** is probably gonna happen to you," Hanson said in the voicemail to Labat.
Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance said that "the Hanson prosecution gives us a clear marker for what kind of conduct would cross that line and gives us a standard for evaluating future comments and posts the former president makes."
Writing in her Civil Discourse blog on the Substack writing website, Vance added: "It's still hard for me to believe we're talking about a former president of the United States doing this sort of thing.
"Beyond the Hanson case, this helps us understand when, subject to a gag order or not, threats made to witnesses, court employees, politicians, or what have you, can amount to a crime. The threat must involve violence and the speaker must, at a minimum, disregard the risk that the recipient will perceive it that way," Vance wrote.
In reviewing the Hanson indictment, Vance said it should be a lesson for Trump when he is writing online about court staff and potential witnesses in the cases against him.
"Others inclined to make threats would do well to heed the commitment the federal government is making clear here."
She said those inclined to make threats "including a certain former president" should be reminded that they "can still be charged with violations of law."
The judge in Trump's New York civil trial has fined Trump $15,000 for twice threatening or placing court staff at risk.
Last Wednesday, Judge Arthur Engoron fined Trump $10,000, after the Republican violated a limited gag order barring personal attacks on court staffers.
The fine came after Trump was called to the witness stand to explain his comment outside the courtroom about "a person who's very partisan sitting alongside" the judge in the case, Engoron.
Weeks previously, Engoron ordered all participants in the trial not to comment publicly about his staff. The narrow gag order imposed on October 3 came after Trump wrote a social-media post attacking the judge's principal law clerk, who sits beside Engoron in court.
The judge ordered Trump to take down that post, but it remained on his campaign website for weeks, for which Engoron initially fined him $5,000.
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