Donald Trump is suddenly obsessed with prison

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Even before he illegally conspired with a foreign enemy to steal the election, Donald Trump was demanding that Hillary Clinton be sent to prison for imaginary crimes. Since taking office, Trump has periodically called for this or that political opponent to be imprisoned as well. But this week Trump has become obsessed with the idea of prison. It’s not difficult to figure out why.

Just as James Comey was releasing his book about his time as FBI Director, Donald Trump tweeted this: “The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered like, how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 & more?” This is far from the first time that Trump has falsely accused Comey of committing these crimes. But in the past he’s settled for merely falsely claiming that these crimes happened.

Now Trump is outright calling for Comey to go to prison. Of course he’s using the word “jail” because he doesn’t understand the difference between jail and prison, a reminder that he truly has no grasp of the criminal justice system that’s in the process of swallowing him. But what he does seem to understand is that this past week’s FBI raid against his “attorney” Michael Cohen means that Trump himself is now very much at risk of going to prison.

Donald Trump also used Twitter yesterday to predict that the Feds will conduct raids against his other attorneys as well, giving away that he really does worry he’s going to be taken down. In that context, it’s not difficult to figure out that Trump’s sudden obsession with prison is a result of his own fear that he’s headed there.

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