Donald Trump May Have Just Committed a New Crime—Attorney

Attorney and legal analyst Andrew Weissmann suggested on MSNBC's The Katie Phang Show on Saturday that former President Donald Trump may have just committed a new crime.

Trump, who is the presumed 2024 GOP presidential nominee, is facing four criminal indictments, including one in Washington, D.C., stemming from his actions surrounding the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.

On January 6, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building to stop the certification of Joe Biden's 2020 election win. The riot erupted following repeated claims made by Trump that the election was stolen from him via widespread voter fraud. There is no evidence to support these claims.

The former president was charged with four federal felony counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and claims that the indictments are politically motivated.

"I remember in the D.C. case...when the magistrate judge warned Donald Trump that the most important condition for him was that he not commit a crime," Weissmann, the former general counsel for the FBI who also served as lead prosecutor in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Trump's 2016 campaign, told host Katie Phang on Saturday.

Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya ordered Trump not to violate any more laws as one of the conditions of his bond and warned that his release could be revoked if he committed any more criminal offenses during his arraignment hearing in August 2023.

"Well, you know what? Threatening the president of the United States is a crime," Weissmann continued. "The legal question and factual one is whether what he has engaged in with respect to posting the image of Joe Biden bound and gagged with what appears to be a bullet hole in his head constitutes that kind of threat."

Weissmann was referring to a video Trump shared on his social media platform Truth Social on Friday. The video showed a pick-up truck driving down a highway on Long Island, New York, with a decal that appeared to depict President Biden, Trump's opponent in November's election, hog-tied as if he had been taken captive in the back of the truck.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek via email on Sunday afternoon: "Andrew Weissman [sic] is a cuck and suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome."

The video received backlash with former Republican Representative Joe Walsh saying, "This is way beyond politics, this is an incitement to violence" while appearing on CNN on Saturday. Walsh previously represented Illinois' 8th Congressional District from 2011 to 2013 and later emerged as an outspoken conservative critic of Trump. He now identifies as an independent.

Biden's campaign also spoke out against the video.

"Trump is regularly inciting political violence and it's time people take him seriously — just ask the Capitol police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6," Michael Tyler, the campaign's communications director, said in a statement.

Cheung also said in a previous statement to various news outlets regarding the video: "That picture was on the back of a pickup truck that was traveling down the highway. Democrats and crazed lunatics have not only called for despicable violence against President Trump and his family, they are actually weaponizing the justice system against him."