How Trump Is Using the Justice Department to Target His Enemies
- Open Society Foundations Global grant network founded by George Soros
- Fani Willis District attorney Fulton County, Ga.
- John O. Brennan Former C.I.A. director
- Adam B. Schiff Senator Democrat of California
- Letitia James Attorney general of New York Indicted
- James Comey Former F.B.I. director Indicted
From the moment Donald J. Trump began his campaign to return to the White House, he has expressed a clear desire to seek vengeance against his perceived enemies. In the last few weeks, the pressure campaign has intensified with two of his foes — James Comey and Letitia James — now indicted.
Back in power, Mr. Trump has weaponized the Justice Department to his own ends, in a more direct manner than any president since the Nixon era. The department, now led by Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyers, has fired dozens of career prosecutors, many of whom had worked on cases involving Mr. Trump. And the president and his allies have targeted or pushed out several U.S. attorneys as he seeks quick movement on cases involving a number of his political adversaries.
Each of the targets Mr. Trump has pursued through the Justice Department has denied wrongdoing, in statements or through lawyers.
How Trump Is Using the Justice Department to Target His Enemies
- Open Society Foundations
- Global grant network founded by George Soros
- Fani Willis
- District attorney Fulton County, Ga.
- John O. Brennan
- Former C.I.A. director
Other targets
- Adam B. Schiff
- Senator Democrat of California
- Letitia James
- Attorney general of New York
- Investigations underway
- James Comey
Former F.B.I. director
Indicted
From the moment Donald J. Trump began his campaign to return to the White House, he has expressed a clear desire to seek vengeance against his perceived enemies. In the last few weeks, the pressure campaign has intensified with two of his foes — James Comey and Letitia James — now indicted.
Back in power, Mr. Trump has weaponized the Justice Department to his own ends, critics say, in a more direct manner than any president since the Nixon era. The department, now led by Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyers, has fired dozens of career prosecutors, many of whom had worked on cases involving Mr. Trump. And the president and his allies have targeted or pushed out several U.S. attorneys as he seeks quick movement on cases involving a number of his political adversaries.
Each of the targets Mr. Trump has pursued through the Justice Department has denied wrongdoing, in statements or through lawyers. Here is a look at them:
Indicted
Letitia James
Attorney general of New York
who replaced
Erik S. Siebert
Former U.S. attorney
Indicted by
Lindsey Halligan
U.S. attorney Eastern District of Virginia
Trump’s former personal lawyer
What the government alleges: A federal grand jury in Virginia indicted Ms. James on bank fraud and false statement charges, following an investigation into whether Ms. James falsified records in a mortgage loan application in Virginia. This is a tactic the administration has used against some of Mr. Trump’s political adversaries, including Senator Adam B. Schiff. Career prosecutors at the department did not find sufficient evidence to bring charges against her and Mr. Comey, but Ms. Halligan, a former personal lawyer of Mr. Trump, filed charges in both cases.
Why Trump is targeting James: As New York’s attorney general, Ms. James opened an investigation into Mr. Trump on allegations that he inflated the value of his real estate holdings. She eventually secured a half-a-billion-dollar penalty against him, but it was later thrown out by an appeals court.
who replaced
James Comey
Former F.B.I. director
Erik S. Siebert
Former U.S. attorney
Indicted by
Lindsey Halligan
U.S. attorney Eastern District of Virginia
Trump’s former personal lawyer
What the government alleges: Ms. Halligan filed an indictment that says Mr. Comey lied before a Senate committee in September 2020 when he denied that he authorized someone at the F.B.I. to leak to the news media. He is charged with one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstructing a congressional proceeding for his testimony. Mr. Comey has pleaded not guilty to the charges and a judge set a trial date of Jan. 5.
Why Trump is targeting Comey: Mr. Comey led the early stages of an investigation into ties between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey for his involvement, which led to a fraught two-year investigation that Mr. Trump repeatedly denounced as “a witch hunt.”
Investigations underway
Investigated by
Adam B. Schiff
Senator Democrat of California
Kelly Hayes
U.S. attorney Maryland
What the government alleges: Potential mortgage fraud related to a property in Maryland.
Why Trump is targeting Schiff: When Mr. Schiff was in the House, he helped lead the first impeachment trial of Mr. Trump in 2019.
What the government alleges: During the Biden administration, an investigation into whether Mr. Bolton had mishandled classified material gained momentum. The inquiry has continued under Mr. Trump, with the scope unclear but appearing similar to past cases involving officials accused of misusing emails or private papers related to national security secrets. Over the summer, federal agents executed search warrants at Mr. Bolton’s home and office.
Why Trump is targeting Bolton: Mr. Bolton worked as a national security adviser during Mr. Trump’s first term. But the two often clashed, and since Mr. Bolton left the post, he has often criticized the president’s stances on foreign policy.
Other targets
What the government alleges: The allegations against Mr. Brennan are hazy but appear to be related to his involvement in helping to put together an intelligence community assessment of Russian influence in the 2016 election.
Why Trump is targeting Brennan: Mr. Brennan is a former C.I.A. director whose agency’s response to Russian election interference in 2016 drew Mr. Trump’s ire.
What the government alleges: A federal grand jury has subpoenaed records related to travel that prosecutors believe Ms. Willis made abroad around the time of last year’s elections. But it is not clear the scope of the investigation nor why prosecutors were seeking the records.
Why Trump is targeting Willis: Ms. Willis is the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney who charged Mr. Trump in a sweeping case accusing him and others of seeking to overturn the 2020 election. An appeals court disqualified Ms. Willis from prosecuting the case, and it is unlikely to move forward soon.
What the government alleges: There are no specific allegations against Mr. Soros or his organization, but a memo issued to a half-dozen U.S. attorney’s offices goes as far as to list possible charges prosecutors could consider, ranging from arson to material support of terrorism.
Why Trump is targeting the Open Society Foundations: The global grant network, which has funded many liberal causes and organizations, was founded by George Soros, a billionaire Democratic donor who has long been a subject of Mr. Trump’s grievances and a boogeyman for the right. The push for U.S. attorney’s offices to investigate comes in the wake of the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk as the White House promised to crack down on liberal and progressive groups.
Smith Special Counsel Investigation & Indictment (2023)
The DOJ, through Special Counsel Jack Smith, indicted Trump on August 1, 2023, on four counts related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Some of those charges echo what the Jan. 6 Committee had referred. Wikipedia+1Smith’s Final Report and DOJ policy
Jack Smith submitted his final report to the DOJ on January 7, 2025 and then resigned a few days later. Wikipedia+1
Volume I of the report, concerning the election-obstruction case, was publicly released on January 14, 2025. Wikipedia
Volume II (dealing with classified documents) has been subject to delays / legal limits on full release because parts of it are tied up in ongoing appeals or co-defendant cases. Wikipedia
Policy preventing prosecution of sitting president
One reason no further prosecutions arose (based on the Committee’s referrals) while Trump was in office is DOJ policy that a sitting president cannot be criminally prosecuted. After Trump was reelected and reinstalled in 2025, some of the cases or charges were dropped without prejudice. Wikipedia+1
Use of the Committee’s Materials
The first volume of Smith’s report says that DOJ used material from the Jan. 6 Committee’s December 2022 report and some materials the Committee had provided. However, those Committee materials made up “a small part” of the overall investigative record. Wikipedia+1
What hasn’t changed / What is not known
No new criminal charges have been brought solely because of the Jan. 6 Committee’s referrals beyond those already pursued by DOJ/Smith. The DOJ case largely overlapped with the referrals but wasn’t a direct result of them in all respects.
There has been no reversal yet of the policy or legal environment that blocked further proceedings while Trump was in office.
Some aspects of the referred statutes (for example incitement / insurrection under 18 U.S.C. § 2383) are not part of the charges in the indictment.
White House
Make no mistake: Antifa is a radical terrorist organization that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the U.S. Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.
Under the Trump Administration, Antifa’s days are over.
Interestingly “AntiFa” is NOT an “organization”, much less a :terrorist organization”.
“Antifa” has long attracted Trump’s ire.
But experts have questioned how the president will actually target the group, which lacks a distinct leader, membership list or structure. In 2020, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that Antifa was better defined as an ideology than as a formal organization.
How do you kill an ideology? Especially an ideology that most Americans hold, most do not want Fascist government!
Fascism exalts nation and race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.
We have in our government many Fascists: white supremist and those who love a dictator for President.
The US government can designate a group as a Foreign Terror Organization (FTO) – the “legal criteria” for this states that the targeted group “must be a foreign organization”.
The State Department lists current FTOs, which include branches of ISIS and, increasingly, drug cartels from Latin America.
An FTO designation means members of a group can be banned from the US or removed from the country and gives the government the power to seize funding and target donors.
But it is unclear how these powers could be extended to Antifa. Thus Trump’s bellowing does nothing.
Weaponization of the Military
10-8-2025 Trump’s jack booted troops
The heavily armed agents carrying out President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement push in Chicago are often masked. The man leading them is not.
Nearly three decades into his career with the US Border Patrol, Gregory Bovino has become the on-the-ground face of Trump’s effort to surge federal law enforcement into blue states and cities regardless of whether local officials want them there — first in Los Angeles, now in Chicago, with other possible cities on deck.
But if he and his officers are an unwelcome presence or face interference from protesters, Bovino said he is not dissuaded.
“We’re going to carry out that mission,” Bovino said in an interview with CNN in Chicago on Tuesday. “And that’s paramount, or else we shouldn’t be here. We’re going to carry that mission out.”
He added that if “someone steps in the way, then … that may not work out well for them, and if we need to effect an arrest of a US citizen or anyone else, then we’ll do that.”
Local officials have described Bovino as leading a branch of law enforcement which deploys tactics that are frighteningly authoritarian and which has been styled into Trump’s own personal police force, used by the president as a cudgel against Democrat-led localities and the people — citizens and noncitizens alike — who live in them.
“I refuse to let Trump, Noem and Bovino continue on this march toward autocracy,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday. “Their plan all along has been to cause chaos, and then they can use that chaos to consolidate Trump’s power.”
Weaponizing of the FBI
10-8-2025 Trump and FBI
A quarter of FBI agents have been assigned to immigration enforcement, internal data shows. The intense focus on immigration has raised alarm among current and former FBI agents who say morale is low across the bureau as agents have less time to dedicate to national security, white-collar crime and complex cases.
10-8-2025 Trump ignores ruling and sends troops anyway!
A federal judge has, for the second time in two days, blocked President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops into Oregon, ruling that the administration appeared to defy her Saturday order that Trump lacked a legal basis for sending the military into Portland.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut said Sunday that the administration’s effort to circumvent her original order — in part by deploying Guard troops from California and Texas — was “in direct contravention” of her earlier decision, which prohibited Trump from federalizing 200 members of Oregon’s National Guard.
Though Trump had claimed the military was needed to combat daily violence against federal immigration officials, Immergut, a Trump appointee, concluded that Trump’s assessment was “untethered to facts” and failed to satisfy the legal basis to federalize the state’s National Guard troops.
Within hours of her ruling, however, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered hundreds of members of California’s National Guard to deploy to Portland and reached an agreement with Texas to send hundreds of that state’s National Guard troops to Chicago, Portland and other areas of the country.
Almost 200 California Guard troops arrived or were expected in Portland on Sunday, according to Alan Gronewold, the commander of Oregon’s National Guard. California Guard officials were told 300 of their personnel were being sent to Portland, although a Justice Department attorney said only 200 of those troops were dispatched to Oregon and the remainder would stay in California.
During an unusual Sunday night telephone hearing, Immergut said the Trump administration’s maneuvers appeared to be a deliberate attempt to circumvent her initial decision.
“I am certainly troubled by now hearing that both California and Texas National Guard are being sent into Oregon, which does appear to be in direct contravention of my order,” Immergut said, describing the latest deployments as a violation of federal law and the Tenth Amendment, which protects state sovereignty.
Immergut agreed with attorneys for California and Oregon, who said the new deployments appeared to be intended to outrun the court. She repeatedly pressed Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton about whether he believed the administration had complied with her order.
Weaponizes the shutdown
10-7-2025 Trump does not want to pay
OMB deletes reference to law guaranteeing backpay to furloughed feds from shutdown guidance.
An Office of Management and Budget FAQ document now states that only excepted employees forced to work without pay are guaranteed backpay at the conclusion of a lapse in appropriations.
Weaponize Social Security
10-6-2025 Trump cuts funds
The Social Security Administration evaluates disability claims by considering age, work experience and education to determine if a person can adjust to other types of work. Older applicants, typically over 50, have a better chance of qualifying because age is treated as a limitation in adapting to many jobs.
But now officials are considering eliminating age as a factor entirely or raising the threshold to age 60, according to three people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions. They also plan to modernize labor market data used to judge whether claimants can work, replacing an outdated jobs database that includes obsolete occupations such as nut sorters and telephone quotation clerks, following a Washington Post investigation in 2022.
It is unclear exactly how many Americans could lose access to disability benefits under the proposed rule changes.
Weaponize Budget
10-3-2025
The Trump administration announced Wednesday it was freezing $18 billion in federal funding for infrastructure projects in New York City, citing concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
New York was also one of more than a dozen states targeted when the administration said it was canceling nearly $8 billion in funding for green energy projects.
Weaponize Press
10-6-2025 Trump lies
Trump keeps lying about AP case |
Twice in the past week, Trump has totally distorted the status of The AP’s press access lawsuit against the White House. “We won,” he told military leaders last Tuesday. “They lost,” he told Navy sailors yesterday, adding, “They got thrown out of court and are almost not allowed to cover me because of that.” The AP is pointing out that those claims are incorrect: “The court ruled in AP’s favor — in a strong opinion in support of free speech — and the government is appealing,” a rep said last night. While an appeals court handed AP “an incremental loss” in June, it’s far from over, as no appeals court has ruled on the merits yet. There is an oral argument slated for Nov. 24… |
- The Trump administration is aiming to use any levers of power it has to respond to Charlie Kirk’s killing, in part to send a message to political opponents.
- ABC taking comedian Jimmy Kimmel off the air for his comments on Kirk this week is just one major highlight of the administration’s enormous pressure on ideological opponents it aims to punish.
- An official said the White House is “exploring a wide variety of options to put pen to paper to address left-wing political violence and the network of organizations that fuel and fund it,” adding that specifics continue to be discussed.
- Trump is steering the response through his own rhetoric over the last few days, insisting that the “radical left” is responsible. Top officials have made clear they would use Kirk’s death to target left-wing groups, with Vice President Vance at one point suggesting they would be dismantled.
- The president suggested on Thursday late-night shows in particular should not be allowed to overwhelmingly be critical of him when asked about Kimmel’s indefinite leave.
- “They’re 97 percent against; they give me only bad press….I would think maybe their license should be taken away,” Trump said, adding that the decision would ultimately be left up to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr.
- A former aide to Trump’s first term said Kimmel being pulled off the air is “a good case study” in the “lever pulling happening with speech and censorship.”
- “There isn’t as much handwringing over what constitutes ‘hate speech’ – they are more focused on what regulatory levers they can pull to put intense pressure on liberal Hollywood media,” the former aide said. “The White House is now using the FCC against Disney in a way we haven’t seen, threatening with license risk, merger scrutiny, spectrum headaches – and suddenly now the affiliates and advertisers are doing the policing on the White House’s behalf.”
- Republicans, meanwhile, seem to have Trump’s back on any actions he makes in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, argued Sam Geduldig, managing partner at GOP lobbying firm CGCN.
“Tragically what Charlie Kirk did for the party— unified it entirely. When Trump decides what he wants to be for, the party will get in line because they’re so unified over the Charlie Kirk situation,” he said.
Trump this week said he would designate the far-left activist movement Antifa as a terrorist organization after warning that groups on the left will be investigated. The White House is also weighing executive actions like targeting left-leaning nonprofit groups with anticorruption laws, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote in a Newsweek op-ed published on Thursday that “agents of chaos must be exorcized from our nation without apology and without compromise.”
“Charlie’s murder is proof that the radical left won’t allow Americans to make our country great again without a fight. Now is the time to wage war, not through aimless violence, but with a legal and rational crackdown on the forces that are desperately trying to annihilate our nation,” she wrote.
Other top administration officials are also calling for action, including Vice President Vance, who on Monday hosted “The Charlie Kirk Show” and called on Americans to call the employers of people they see “celebrating Charlie’s murder.”
He suggested the administration could specifically target the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, both of which have ties to liberal megadonor George Soros. And, Justice Department officials have suggested they could use federal racketeering laws, known as RICO, to target groups on the left that they claim are working together to target others through doxxing.
Attorney general Pam Bondi was in hot water this week for saying the administration will “go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech” and separately threatened to prosecute Office Depot over an employee’s refusal to print posters for a vigil honoring Kirk. In an effort to clarify Bondi’s comments, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said hate speech is “of course” protected by the First Amendment.
Businesses have taken note of the rhetoric and actions out of the administration over the last week and are evaluating how they function moving forward.
One Democratic lobbyist described the feeling: “It’s straight forward: give what’s expected, get what’s needed, and stay low when there’s no gain in being visible.”
And, the entertainment industry in particular, in the wake of the Kimmel incident, is evaluating their risks when decision-making, the former aide in Trump’s first term said.
“We’re going to see a lot more of this in a post-Kirk assassination world— the White House is playing hard ball and giving the entire entertainment industry a wakeup call that they are a businesses, not propaganda machine,” the former aide said.
The source added, “Both boardrooms and local affiliates are now recalculating risk, and Hollywood is learning that gaslighting half the country now carries real costs.”