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BREAKING: Did Don Winslow Try to Extort Senator Warner on Twitter/X?

Aaron Walker
Aaron Walker  |  3:33 AM on July 06, 2024
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Pool

Let’s start right off by answering our own question. We don’t know, just yet. We need more information before we can say a crime was definitely committed. But as you will see, the behavior we are about to outline is suspicious enough that we think law enforcement should knock on Mr. Winslow’s door.

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As a brief background, Don Winslow is an author of some fictional novels, but he’s probably best known for being absolutely unhinged in his opposition to Trump. And Senator Warner is in the news right now primarily because he is reportedly trying to assemble a group of Democratic senators to try to meet with Joe Biden and convince him to leave the Presidential race:

And, he is also in the news because Biden took a swipe at him in his interview with George Stephanopoulos, but that is neither here nor there, because what has our attention right now is the fact Don Winslow posted this on Twitter/X:

Indeed, credit goes to Yashar Ali for being the first we saw to catch some of the implications.

That sure as heck sounds like Mr. Winslow threatened a sitting senator. If we are right, the question is, with what did he threaten Warner and why? After all, not all threats are illegal.

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Mr. Ali suggests but doesn’t outright say it is about Warner’s effort to convince Biden to leave the presidential race and while that seems like a likely possibility, we can’t be 100% sure.

And, of course, another question is what is Winslow apparently threatening him with? Mr. Ali speculates Winslow is threatening Warner with the release of negative information, but for all we know he could be threatening to support someone to primary Warner in the next election. Or he might be threatening to withhold money. Or heck, he might even be threatening violence.

There’s no way of knowing, but we are of the opinion that law enforcement should knock on Mr. Winslow’s door and ask him what he meant by that, because that sounds like it might be extortion. We have written extensively on what extortion is, here, and we won't repeat all of it in this piece, but let’s use some hypotheticals to show how the law of extortion might apply here. 

Let’s say hypothetically Winslow sent a text message to Senator Warner saying the following:

Don’t try to get Biden to drop out, or I will tell the world about how you slept with a hooker in Thailand. I have the pictures.

Naturally, we are making up everything there. We don't know if Mr. Warner has ever been to Thailand or if he has ever engaged in sexual impropriety. Still, if we pretend this happened for the sake of illustration, that’s classic extortion and would likely violate the laws of several jurisdictions. That is true even if the senator did indeed commit the act. Truth is not a defense to a charge of extortion.

The same could be said if a person hypothetically said 

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Don’t try to get Biden to drop out, or I will send a man to break your legs.

That would also be extortion. On the other hand, this isn’t extortion:

Don’t try to get Biden to drop out, or I will move to Virginia and run against you in the primary.

This is because ultimately extortion is about trying to get something out of someone by certain kinds of improper leverage. So, trying to get that thing by the use of a threat of violence or by a threat to accuse a person of bad conduct—whether it is true or not—is extortion. But if you are dissatisfied with the job a politician is doing, you’re allowed to try to run against him or even to support his or her opponent. And you are allowed to tell that politician ahead of time that this is what you plan to do, so that the politician might adjust his or her behavior accordingly. That’s kind of how a Republic works, so it can’t be criminalized.

We would also note that it's not just the FBI that can get involved—and thank G-d that is the case, because we don’t trust the Biden administration to enforce the law in this circumstance. There’s a very strong chance that this communication originated in one state or U.S. territory and traveled to another. So that would mean that any potential crime was committed both in the originating state or territory and the receiving state or territory, in addition to it being committed on the federal level. Furthermore, this might be seen as an affront to the state of Virginia even if they otherwise wouldn't have jurisdiction over this investigation because Mr. Warner is supposed to represent the people of Virginia and that might give Virginia authorities the power to investigate. So multiple agencies in multiple jurisdictions might have the right to investigate Mr. Winslow. We hope at least one of them does.

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Again, we are not saying Mr. Winslow definitely committed a crime. We are only saying that what he said definitely makes us suspicious enough that if we were in law enforcement, we would knock on his door and demand to know what he meant by that post.

We would also add that his behavior raises the possibility of bribery, because again we don’t know what Winslow might have been threatening or what he is trying to stop Warner from doing. We won’t bore you with the details, but certainly if Winslow was saying ‘I won’t give you money if you don’t do X or if you do in fact do Y,’ you get into the realm of potential bribery. Even then there are nuances that might make all the difference between whether bribery was committed, or not, and we aren't going into all of them here. Still, the Supreme Court has read the bribery statute pretty narrowly so that if Winslow explicitly said, ‘if you try to get Biden to quit his campaign I won’t donate to you anymore,’ that can’t be bribery, because it has to relate to Warner’s official functions in office. Bribery is about the abuse of official power, and we don’t think pressuring a person to drop out of a political campaign counts as an exercise of official power in light of how the Supreme Court has interpreted federal bribery law.

And of course, state bribery laws might be implicated, too.

But we will never know unless someone from law enforcement knocks on Winslow’s door and that absolutely should happen.

On to reactions, which includes many people who surely think they are defenders of democracy who are supporting this attempt to bully a sitting senator:

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She doesn't seem to think that is a bad thing.

What the actual eff does that mean?

Some people just used it as a chance to denounce what Warner was doing.

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Were the people told the truth about his mental status when they voted for him or her?

In any case, some apparent Democrats denounced this behavior:

Of course, there was at least one guy who didn’t seem like a supporter of Biden or Winslow, who was just along for the ride:

Whispers: Shh. Just watch in silence. If they know we are enjoying it, they might stop.

Also, some people picked up on some of the same issues we did:

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Finally, this person has this criticism of Warner:

We have no idea what that food is, but it doesn’t sound very appealing to us.

Jokes aside, this behavior is disturbing and deserves criminal investigation. Again, we’re not saying a crime definitely occurred, but we are saying that an investigation aimed toward determining whether a crime has occurred is wholly justified.

Tags: CRAZY CRIME EXTORTION LAW MARK WARNER THREATS

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