From a page right out of the “Tyrant’s Handbook” – co-authors Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un – the Trump administration indicted former FBI Director James Comey on Sept. 25 – five days after President Donald Trump ordered his Justice Department to do just that. Comey was scheduled for arraignment Oct. 9.
Trump promised during his campaign to turn our government into his personal retribution tool against political foes. That such an egregious abuse of power is occurring in the United States makes one wonder when the gulags [for other than brown-skinned people] and mental health confinements will be enacted.
In a social media post Sept. 20 – ostensibly to Attorney General Pam Bondi but posted for all to read – Trump cited Comey, whose investigation into Russian election interference in 2016 actually [somehow] exonerated Trump’s campaign as a prime target for federal prosecution.
Yes, this is the same Trump, who on July 27, 2016, said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing.”
Prior to that, on June 9, 2016, Donald Trump Jr., Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump’s then-campaign manager Paul Manafort met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya – who formerly represented the Russian FSB security agency, the successor of the KGB.
This meeting in Trump Tower was ostensibly concerned with Russian adoptions. It also included Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhemetshin, who had boasted of his past as a Russian intelligence officer.
Russian adoptions? How about some ocean-front property in Omsk?
Manafort later pled guilty and was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on two charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering in connection with his lobbying for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian leader of Ukraine before he fled that country under citizen pressure. Released from prison under house arrest during the COVID-19 pandemic, Manafort was pardoned by Trump on Dec. 23, 2020.
Trump’s Sept. 20 post also but bull’s-eyes on Sen. Adam Schiff, who led the Trump impeachment hearings as a House member, and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who oversaw Trump’s conviction for fraudulently overvaluing his real estate holdings in order to get better treatment on bank loans.
A president demands – and gets – the prosecution of political foes? At this rate, we might advise those named and other Trump critics to stay away from windows in high office buildings.
Others who might be wary include:
- GOP Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who told Meet the Press he opposed “lawfare in all forms.”
- Sen. Chris Murphy, D-CT, who said it was “unconstitutional and deeply immoral for the president to jail or to silence his political enemies” on ABC’s This Week.
- Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York, who told CNN’s State of the Union, “This is the path to a dictatorship. That’s what dictatorships do.”
- Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who criticized Trump in August for making the Justice Department “his personal legal representation.”
In late August Trump promised to target former President Joe Biden’s “evil people” advisors.
“There were some brilliant people,” Trump said. “But they’re evil people, and they’re going to be brought down. They have to be brought down ’cause they really hurt our country.”
A country which Trump now has teetering on the edge of weak-man rule.
The flip side of persecuting political enemies with a weaponized Justice Department is choosing whom not to prosecute.
In late September, the Justice Department killed the investigation into a bribe scheme sting involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan.
According to MSNBC, the FBI initiated the probe after “a subject in a separate investigation claimed Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win the presidential election.”
Acting on that tip, the FBI set up a sting in the summer of 2024, with FBI agents, pretending to be business executives, allegedly giving Homan $50,000 in cash to grease the wheels of commerce.
I say “allegedly” though it is hard to imagine the FBI orchestrating a sting without ensuring thorough, recorded documentation.
Anyhow, the investigation stalled soon after Trump took office, before it was ash-canned last month.
On July 29, the Justice Department dropped its case against Fat Brands, parent company of Fatburger among other restaurants. The White House had already fired the career federal prosecutor handling the case.
According to filed documents last year, three company officials and the company “committed crimes including, among others, wire fraud, extension and maintenance of credit in the form of a personal loan from an issuer to an executive officer, false statements and omissions of material facts to auditors, and certifying faulty financial reports.”
They had been charged with trying to hide a plan to pay an unaccounted for $47 million to Fat Brands company chairman [and Trump/GOP donor] Andy Wiederhorn.
Also dismissed were separate charges against Wiederhorn for being in possession of a firearm and ammunition despite previous felony convictions.
Previous felony convictions? Get that man an ambassadorship.
NBC News reported that, “last year, Martin Estrada, then the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said the allegations involved Wiederhorn’s using the company “as his personal slush fund,” while an IRS official said the allegations showed Wiederhorn was a “serial tax cheat.”
But, wait. There’s more. On Aug. 13, Rick Claypool of Public Citizen reported that, of at least 104 technology sector corporations facing 142 enforcement actions, 38 cases had been withdrawn and nine halted.
Claypool found, “These tech corporations, along with their executives and investors, collectively spent $1.2 billion on political influence during and since the 2024 elections, $222 million specifically “in payment to Trump businesses.”
Trump has also weaponized the rest of the government to decimate federal regulatory agencies to enable his corporate donors to prey upon us with impunity and he wields the FCC in order to silence critics – comedians and others.
What country is this?
