Saturday, September 20, 2025

What did Donald Trump do today?

He tweeted out an order to prosecute specific political enemies, whether or not they'd done anything wrong.

In a post to his private microblogging site that may have been intended as a direct message, Trump directly addressed his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and ordered her to take action to prosecute his political enemies. 

Donald J. Trump 0 C @realDonaldTrumpPam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, "same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam "Shifty" Schiff, Leticia??? They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done." Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That's why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many layers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility.They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT  

This comes the day after Trump forced the resignation of the US Attorney for Eastern Virginia for being unable to come up with a pretext to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James with a crime.

Whether or not Trump intended for this message to be seen, it is an open admission that Trump is trying to use the Department of Justice as a weapon against Americans who oppose him politically. (Trump is correct that he has been impeached twice: once for his attempt to blackmail Ukraine into creating a fake investigation against his political rival Joe Biden, and once for his attempt to incite an insurrection in order to cling to power after he lost the 2020 election. But he was indicted on 86 state and federal charges, not five.) 

Unlike any of the people he named, Trump is a convicted felon. He was found guilty by a New York state jury on 34 state charges related to illegal business practices, though he escaped punishment due to his election. He is still liable for prosecution on the federal charges related to his theft of classified documents, his role in the insurrection trying to overturn the 2020 election, and in Georgia for his attempts to coerce the state government to change election results on his behalf.

In what appears to have been a hastily-arranged press gaggle Saturday night, Trump tried to explain away the post, but ended up just reaffirming its central message—that his political enemies must be put in legal jeopardy, regardless of the facts.


It is unconstitutional and illegal for prosecutors to "act" against anyone if there is no evidence to suggest they have committed a crime. 

Until Trump, it was considered a major breach of ethics for the Justice Department to take any political cues from the White House, or even to have contact with it except on a need-to-know basis. President Nixon was forced to resign in no small part because he violated that basic principle.

Trump did not comment on the news of actual criminal behavior that came out of his administration today—the revelation that Tom Homan, his so-called "border czar," was caught on tape taking cash from undercover FBI agents last year in exchange for promises that he would influence policy if Trump were re-elected. In spite of this smoking-gun evidence of bribery and fraud, Trump's Department of Justice quietly closed the investigation earlier this year.

Why does this matter?

  • In terms of the things that define a dictatorship, sending the law against people you know are innocent while protecting the ones you know are guilty is as bad as it gets. 
  • Presidents who can't tell the difference between the "post" and "DM" buttons can't be trusted with phones or national security.
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