“When they go low, we go high!” was an inspiring line from then-First Lady Michelle Obama during the 2016 Presidential election. 

Unfortunately, it proved only that good guys finish last.

During the campaign, supporters of Republican candidate Donald J. Trump repeatedly threatened violence against his opponent, Hillary Clinton.  

Among those threats:

• In Cincinnati, a Trump supporter threatened to forcibly remove Clinton from the White House if she won the race: “If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,”
• Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Clinton: “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take….I would do whatever I can for my country.”

Even Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP, expressed fear of what might happen if Trump lost the election.

Fergus Cullen

“That’s really scary,” Cullen said, recounting the violence at Trump rallies around the country leading up to the Republican National Convention. “In this country, we’ve always had recriminations after one side loses. But we haven’t had riots. We haven’t had mobs that act out with violence against supporters of the other side. 

“There’s no telling what his supporters would be willing to do at the slightest encouragement from their candidate,” he said. 

Trump even began encouraging his mostly white supporters to sign up online to be “election observers” to stop “Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” He urged them to act as poll watchers in “other” [non-white] communities to ensure that things are “on the up and up.”

And many of his supporters promised to do so.

“Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure,” said Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio.

“I’ll look for…well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”

Knowing that large numbers of angry—and possibly armed—Right-wingers planned to descend on polling places could only have had a chilling effect on untold numbers of Democratic voters. And this would have been especially true in heavily conservative states. 

Both the USA Patriot Act and the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act have statutes dealing with making terrorist threats against government institutions to influence their members.  

If Trump’s remarks did not violate one or both of those laws, certainly remarks made by his surrogates did. 

Thus, the Justice Department could have cited the Patriot Act in indicting Trump and/or any number of his followers for “activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” 

The Justice Department could have also demanded that the results of the election be invalidated on the basis that widespread voter and candidate intimidation played a massive role in it.

But that, of course, did not happen.

So far, only one person has proven Trump’s equal—if not superior—in fighting fire with fire: Omarosa Manigauot-Newman, his onetime “Apprentice” protégé. 

The relationship between Donald Trump and Omarosa dates to 2004, when she became a participant in the first season of “The Apprentice,” NBC’s “reality” TV series.

Her rudeness and ruthlessness toward other contestants quickly made her “the woman America loved to hate,” according to Jet magazine. 

TV Guide included her in its 2013 list of “The 60 Nastiest TV Villains of All Time.” 

In 2008, she appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice”—where she was again fired after failing to sell more artwork than a rival team. 

During the 2016 Presidential race, she served as Trump’s Director of African-American Outreach, although she had absolutely no credible ties to the black community. 

Omarosa Manigault-Newman

(By Photography by Glenn Francis of PacificProDigital.com)

And, in September, 2016, she famously predicted: “Every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump. It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”

When  Trump moved into the White House on January 20, 2017, Manigault moved in with him as his director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison. 

Her arrogance and rudeness quickly won her as many enemies among White House staffers as among her former “Apprentice” rivals. 

A typical example: On April 8, 2017, she married John Allen Newman, the senior pastor at The Sanctuary at Mt. Calvary, a church in Jacksonville, Florida. Afterwards, in full bridal attire, Omarosa took her 39-member bridal party to the White House for an extended photo shoot. 

According to Politico, White House senior aides and security officials were caught by surprise. Omarosa hadn’t alerted them in advance. Her visitors—lacking security clearances—“loudly wandered around” the Rose Garden and West Wing.