Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin said she believes Donald Trump intentionally used the word “riggers” as a racial dog whistle following his Georgia indictment.
Hours after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis released the racketeering indictment charging Trump and 18 allies in a conspiracy to change Georgia’s 2020 election results, Trump raged against the case on his Truth Social platform.
The former president claimed to have evidence that would lead to a “complete EXONERATION of him and his allies, adding: “They never went after those that Rigged the Election. They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!”
Many of his supporters quickly began using the term on far-right social media sites, some in a derogatory manner alluding to the racist slur.
Keith Boykin, a former White House aide to Bill Clinton, accused Trump of thinly veiled racism, writing on social media: “He wrote ‘RIGGERS’ but what know what he really meant.”
Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper, Griffin agreed with that assessment.
“With Trump, you don’t need to look for a dog whistle — it’s a bullhorn when it comes to race,” she said. “And I do think that’s deliberate.”
Griffin pointed to the “slanderous attacks” Trump has levelled against Willis, who is Black, adding that “he’s not really hiding that he’s going to lean into that element.”
She also pointed to the demographics in the Atlanta courtroom where a grand jury returned the indictment earlier this week.
“It was a lot of Black men and women who were serving in that courtroom,” Griffin said. “The fact that he’s introducing race into this prosecution surprises me. It’s disgusting. It’s textbook Donald Trump.”
Racist abuse targeting Willis has escalated across right-wing platforms since the charges were revealed on Monday night. According to The Guardian, several Gab posts included images of nooses and gallows, and called for Willis and grand jurors in the case to be hanged.
There have also been death threats and calls for violence against other people involved in Trump’s four indictments.
Trump’s well-established history of racist behaviour stretches back decades.