The Department of Justice’s leaders caved to pressure from President Trump to weaponize the agency against his perceived political enemies
This is far from business as usual
- Tue, Dec 9 2025 at 10:02 AM
Joseph,
Over the past few months, we’ve seen the Department of Justice’s leaders cave to pressure from President Trump to weaponize the agency against his perceived political enemies. This has led to the indictments of James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
As a former federal corruption prosecutor, my experience tells me that this is not, despite skeptics’ assertions, “the same thing that Democrats did to Trump.”
As I wrote about in my op-ed for The Hill, these prosecutions are different because of how they happened—and they're deserving of attention and outrage.
While prosecutions under other administrations were driven by the law and by significant evidence, these prosecutions followed Trump’s own calls for indictments.
Trump personally called for prosecutions on social media, declaring Comey and James “guilty as hell,” and urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to indict them. This was unprecedented, as presidents traditionally do not intervene in specific prosecutions.
Notably, President Biden steered clear of demanding Trump’s prosecution. Presidents traditionally do not intervene in specific prosecutions, which is vital to maintaining the public's faith that people are prosecuted only based on the law—not a political vendetta.
These prosecutions were also brought despite the determination of career professionals that there was not enough evidence to do so. To make them happen, Trump installed a loyalist, Lindsey Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience, but moved to indict the cases.
This is in stark contrast to Jack Smith’s indictments of Trump, which followed in-depth investigations driven by career investigators and prosecutors.
Joseph, these aren’t insignificant details. They’re the difference between a functioning democracy and a slip into authoritarianism.
If a president can decide which of his enemies he wants prosecuted and make it happen, then no one is safe. This is a clear and present danger to our country, and we cannot write it off as business as usual.
The good news is that these cases have faced setbacks and scrutiny—as they should. A judge ruled Halligan’s appointment unlawful on November 24th, which voided Comey and James’s indictments. And last week, a grand jury reportedly declined to re-indict James. These are encouraging developments, but they should never have been needed in the first place.
Noah Bookbinder
President
CREW
Comments
Post a Comment