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America Just Failed the Test of Responding to Trump’s Politicized Prosecutions

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Let’s imagine that, two years from now, Pam Bondi rolls out charges against some onetime adversary of Donald Trump. To the extent that journalists will still be employed and reading court filings, to the extent that prosecutors under Emil Bove (who at SDNY oversaw a team sanctioned for discovery violations) comply with discovery requirements, the adversary in question learns the following about his prosecution:

  • The case started when an investigator started looking into a transnational trafficking network
  • The investigator discovered that the prominent adversary had paid one of the sex workers trafficked in the network
  • Rather than pursuing the traffickers, the investigator used the payment for sex as cause to open an investigation
  • Of course, no one is going to charge a John … so the investigator starts pulling divorce records and four year old tax returns to try to move from that payment for sex work to something that can be charged
  • Then the investigator started incorporating oppo research from Peter Schweizer into his investigation
  • Kash Patel’s FBI set up protected ways to accept tips from Trump supporters who’ve doctored documents to create a crime
  • Trump called up Bondi and told her to take more aggressive steps
  • Trump called up foreign leaders asking for help on this prosecution
  • Bondi then set up a way to launder that information from foreign sources, including known spies, into the investigation of the adversary
  • Patel’s FBI asked a partisan informant to fabricate claims against the adversary
  • Trump publicly called out prosecutors — resulting in them and their children being followed — because they had not yet charged his adversary
  • Ultimately, the adversary got charged on 5-year old dirt, and only then, after charging, did prosecutors quickly do the investigative work to win the case at trial

Now, as I’ve described it, you surely imagine you’d say, wow, that looks like a thoroughly corrupt prosecution, a clear case of Trump using DOJ to punish his adversaries.

Right?

It’s not so much that investigators didn’t, after the fact, find a crime to charge. They did. If you investigate most high profile people long enough, you’ll find something to charge, particularly if multiple people come to DOJ with doctored evidence to help create that crime.

It’s that someone found the name of an adversary in the digital records of crimes that were more important to investigate, and instead of pursuing that crime, used the electronic record as an excuse to keep looking until they found some evidence of a crime against Trump’s adversary.

Everyone would recognize that’s what happened, right?

Of course not. Of course no one would recognize that that was a political prosecution.

We need no further proof than the fact that none of those very same details showed up in any of the coverage of the Hunter Biden investigation. Not now that he has been pardoned. Not when all these details came out last year. Not in any of the retrospectives of the times Trump demanded investigations on his adversaries.

What will happen instead is that a bunch of self-important DC scribes will chase the most salacious allegations, provide endless headlines about sex workers and wild parties. The DC scribes will ignore every detail about the legal investigation — every one!! — and instead use the prosecution as an opportunity to sell political scandal. And also, they will point to their Tiger Beat coverage as proof, they say, they are not politically biased.

Rather than diligently rooting out the obviously politicized prosecution, the press will be complicit in it.

And rather than deciding that the adversary was the target of an obviously politicized prosecution, American public opinion would instead decide that the adversary was icky, and because he is icky, his statements about Trump cannot be credited.

That is what political prosecutions look like. That is, of course, precisely what the Hunter Biden prosecution was (ignoring the assurances from prosecutors who say no one with the fact set Hunter faced would be charged). Every single bullet has an analogue in the Hunter Biden case. That obviously political prosecution is what happened.

Once the GOP got the House majority, they did nothing else but platform these claims, which a different set of self-important scribes treated as an interesting process story, not an obvious case of a great abuse of government power.

And now that Biden has pardoned his son, the very same self important scribes who ignored all the signs this was a political prosecution, are giving non-stop coverage to a pardon that — unlike those of Trump’s Coffee Boy, National Security Adviser, campaign manager, personal lawyer, and rat-fucker — are not about self-protection, most with no mention of all the evidence Trump ordered up this prosecution to target Joe Biden.

The question is, what are we going to do about this, now that we have rock solid proof the press establishment is not only incapable, but wildly uninterested, in rooting out this kind of politicized prosecution — at least not when they can instead sell scandal?

In the face of seeing Pam Bondi and Kash Patel preparing to redouble efforts to find politicized prosecutions against Donald Trump’s adversaries, Joe Biden chose to end the process, with his son, at least.

I’m actually on the record opposing the pardon — but not for the reasons everyone else is. I don’t think pardoning Hunter in this circumstance is corrupt. I take Biden at his word that he changed his mind about pardoning Hunter. I’m far more interested in Trump admitting he was lying about his plans to implement Project 2025 than that Biden reneged on assurances no one much believed anyway.

I oppose the pardon because it eliminates Hunter’s standing to appeal and with those appeals to begin telling the story that the media chose to ignore. I oppose the pardon because if we don’t start laying out how Trump already politicized DOJ while there’s a good base of legitimate judges in place, it’ll be far too late.

And don’t get me wrong. I think Biden fucked this one up. Not just for saying he wouldn’t pardon Hunter, but for not taking action far earlier — like firing David Weiss the day he was inaugurated, citing Trump’s first impeachment, or pardoning Hunter and firing Weiss on November 6 — to do something about this. I think Merrick Garland shouldn’t have given Weiss himself SCO status (not least, because Weiss continues to investigate crimes — the alleged attempted framing of Joe Biden by Alexander Smirnov — to which he is a witness). I think Garland’s supervision of Special Counsels allowed the abuse of the system, repeatedly.

I’ve never, as far as I’m aware, spoken with Hunter Biden. I have, however, spoken to a good number of the people who were and who would be politically prosecuted in Trump’s second term (not including myself, of course). And the thing I’ve learned from them is because the press is complicit in their politicized prosecution, it guarantees they’ll be isolated, regardless of guilt or innocence. Because the press has unquenchable thirst for lazy dick pic sniffing, they don’t do the work of reading the court filings. Because the press thirsts for a false appearance of both sides neutrality, they’re always on the hunt for something to fit into their both sides scandal box.

And meanwhile, those very same self-important scribes were largely silent in 2020 when Trump pardoned his way out of Russian trouble, and even more silent in 2024 when they could have explained to voters that he had done so.

Whatever else you think about the Hunter Biden case and the way Joe Biden pardoned him, it is crystal clear proof that the thing defenders of democracy swear they’ll do in a second Trump term — rise to the defense of those targeted for political prosecution — they already failed to do. Whatever you think about the Hunter Biden case, the vast majority of people talking about it have absolutely no clue that it is precisely what people fear in Trump’s second term, not (just) because Hunter was charged in two indictments when others would not be, but because Trump and his people repeatedly ordered up this prosecution.

Update: Peter Baker, who wrote an otherwise thorough piece during the election about Trump’s corruption which ignored Hunter, claims to be unable to tell whether Biden’s claim that Hunter’s prosecution was politicized is true or not.

Update: Here’s a copy of a white paper Hunter’s attorneys released to describe the politicization of the case. It adds the Parnas and Scott Brady allegations to the stuff in the selective prosecution motions.

Pam Bondi Offers a Platform to Expose the Consequences of Trump’s Past Corruption

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Greg Sargent had a column proposing ways for Democrats to really challenge Pam Bondi at her confirmation hearing. He describes it as an opportunity to expose how badly she’ll be willing to politicize rule of law.

Democrats should start thinking right now about the opportunity presented by Bondi’s Senate confirmation hearings next year. This will be a major occasion to unmask just how far she’ll gladly go in corrupting the rule of law and unleashing the state on all the “vermin” he has threatened to persecute.

“The attorney general will be the weaponizer-in-chief of the legal system for Trump,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, told me.

While I agree with Sargent’s premise — Democrats should treat Bondi’s confirmation hearing as an opportunity — I disagree with his proposed approach (and that espoused by Jamie Raskin, whom he quotes at length).

Sargent’s focus is on how Bondi would act under predictable eventualities.

Trump has threatened to prosecute enemies without cause. How will Bondi respond when he demands such prosecutions? He has vowed to yank broadcasting rights to punish media companies that displease him and send the military into blue areas for indeterminate pacification missions. His advisers are reportedly exploring whether military officers involved in the Afghanistan mission can be court-martialed. Raskin says Bondi should be confronted on all of this: “Ask whether she thinks the First Amendment and due process are any impediment to what Trump has called for.”

But this is precisely the approach that failed with Bill Barr, who months after a contentious confirmation hearing, kicked off the process of politicizing DOJ.

Most tellingly, Barr was asked questions about the kind of foreseeable eventualities that Sargent describes (such as, pardons for January 6ers), and it did no good. Patrick Leahy, Amy Klobuchar, and Lindsey Graham all asked Barr whether pardoning someone for false testimony would amount to obstruction. Every time, Barr at least conceded the potential applicability of obstruction in that case. And then, just months after that hearing, when Barr wrote a declination memo for Robert Mueller’s obstruction charge, he simply ignored the pardons. He didn’t mention them at all. While it took years for us to learn how he had reneged on his own stated views (by simply ignoring them), those setting these expectations never found a way to hold him accountable for the dodge.

That said, January 6 Committee staffer Thomas Joscelyn, whom Sargent also quotes, gets a bit closer to the approach I’d recommend. Don’t ask Bondi whether she would do something; make sure you lay out her responsibility for inevitable consequences when things she’s likely to do have untoward effects.

“What happens if Trump pardons the Proud Boys leaders who were convicted for seditious conspiracy and instigating the violence?” said Tom Joscelyn, a lead author of the Jan. 6 Committee report, in suggesting lines of questioning for Bondi. “What about the dozens of defendants convicted of assaulting cops?”

Joscelyn adds that pardons for them would provide a major boost to violent far right extremist groups in this country and would “legitimize their cause.” Dems should confront Bondi with all of that. Make her own every last bit of it.

Where I’d add to what Joscelyn suggests is with Trump’s past history.

Rather than asking Bondi about something we know will happen going forward (political violence from freed militia members), ask her how she’ll avoid the negative consequences Trump’s past actions already had. Rather than asking Bondi whether she’ll be responsible for Proud Boy violence when Trump pardons them, instead note that Bill Barr treated threats  the Proud Boys and Roger Stone made against Amy Berman Jackson as a technicality, only to have them plan an insurrection 18 months later. “Bill Barr’s coddling of Trump’s far right extremists led to a predictable increased threat, an attack on the Capitol. How will you avoid the same mistake?” It uses the confirmation hearing to lay out the consequences of past corruption.

You can use this approach with pardons more generally. “Because Trump didn’t properly vet his pardons the first time around, at least seven of them quickly returned to crime, with many of them beating their spouses. How will you ensure that Trump’s bypassing of normal pardon protocol don’t put violent men back on the streets?” You can pick some of the January 6ers — like hardened criminal Shane Jenkins, who almost had a fundraiser at Bedminster, or NeoNazi Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who did — to ask Bondi how coddling such criminals is consistent with the law-and-order promises she makes.

The difference, so far, is subtle: Using the hearing to show past consequences for Barr or Trump’s own failures, rather than generically predicting future woes.

But that difference becomes more important when adopting a more important focus for the hearing.

Like the legitimization of far right extremists that Joscelyn predicts, we can predict a number of other inevitable outcomes from Trump’s second term. The most important is that as billionaires like Elon Musk loot the government, government service will decline precipitously, only exacerbating the alienation of many of the people who voted for Trump. And when those same billionaires get impunity from Trump’s DOJ, consumers will have their lives ruined. But Trump will work hard to blame scapegoats: liberals, trans people, and unions, rather than the billionaires Trump chose to given direct control over the looting process.

Democrats need to build in accountability for the corruption from the beginning. They need to explain that a crash in life quality is the inevitable consequence of Trump’s corruption and — just as important because committed MAGAts are more likely to turn on others before they turn on Trump — his billionaire appointees and protected buddies.

And Pam Bondi offers a spectacular way to lay that out, because she has been involved in protecting the villains who harmed Trump supporters in the past.

“Ms. Bondi, these ardent Trump supporters who signed up for Trump University racked up debt but got nothing from their degrees. How will you avoid such abuse of consumers going forward?”

“Ms. Bondi, after you fired the attorneys who were investigating banks foreclosing based on dodgy paperwork, millions of Floridians lost their homes. How will you protect Americans from similar business fraud going forward?”

“Ms. Bondi, after you and Rudy Giuliani made false claims about the vote in Pennsylvania, many of them threw their lives away by attacking the Capitol. How will you ensure that such lies don’t harm Trump supporters going forward?”

There are similar questions she can be asked that will anticipate other actions she’s likely to take — like shutting down investigations into Elon Musk’s various stock manipulations and false claims. “Ms. Bondi, how will you protect consumers who purchased cars falsely sold as self-driving?”

There are other questions that might get at Bondi’s past complicity. “Ms. Bondi, why did you and Trump’s other impeachment defense attorneys claim Trump’s demand for an investigation into Burisma was a pursuit of corruption, when Trump’s own DOJ had just shut down a 3-year investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky’s corruption?”

But the most important questions can and should be framed in terms of the Trump supporters whom her past corruption has harmed.

Democrats are not going to prevent Bondi’s confirmation. They’re also not going to get reassurances that Bondi will protect the integrity of the Department; Bill Barr’s prevarications prove that’s futile.

But they can use the high profile confirmation process as a way to lay out what should be a relentless message going forward: corruption hurts the little guy. Trump’s past corruption has hurt his supporters. Bondi’s past corruption has hurt his supporters.

That’s what the Republicans who will confirm her should have to own: the inevitable consequences of her protection of Trump’s corruption and that of the other billionaires who will be swarming his administration.

WaPo Enthusiastically Joins Trump’s Attack on Rule of Law

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One reason why Trump managed to win the election in spite of his four felony prosecutions is because self-imagined journalists never fact-checked him when he falsely claimed his prosecutions — all of them — were partisan witch hunts.

This article, from WaPo, is a remarkable example.

It confirms what was already clear — that Trump will attempt to fire everyone who worked on his own criminal prosecutions — and adds that Trump also intends to use DOJ to investigate his claims of voter fraud that his own DOJ already debunked in late 2020. It describes this fascist project to politicize DOJ as evidence of his “intention to dramatically shake up the status quo in Washington.”

The post notes that Trump, “lost to Joe Biden but continues to insist [the election] was stolen from him in key battlegrounds,” and describes that, “neither the president-elect nor his allies have ever provided evidence to prove their claims of voter fraud.”

But it doesn’t mention that Bill Barr’s DOJ already did investigate Trump’s claims of election fraud. And although Josh Dawsey is bylined, the story mentions none of Dawsey’s several stories on contractors whom Trump hired in 2020, who looked for — but could not find — any evidence to back these claims (one two three).

More tellingly, WaPo’s four journalists don’t bother to correct Karoline Leavitt’s objectively false claim that, “President Trump won the election in a landslide,” a claim that could be easily debunked by pointing out that Trump won’t break 50% of the popular vote and won by less than 2%.

They just let Leavitt lie.

Worse still, they repeated Trump’s claims of grievance over and over, saying only that it is a frequent claim, not a false one.

[1] a Trump spokeswoman echoed the president-elect’s frequent claim that the Justice Department cases against him were politically motivated.

“President Trump campaigned on firing rogue bureaucrats who have [2] engaged in the illegal weaponization of our American justice system, and the American people can expect he will deliver on that promise,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “One of the many reasons that President Trump won the election in a landslide is Americans are sick and tired of seeing their tax dollars spent on [3] targeting the Biden-Harris Administration’s political enemies rather than going after [a] real violent criminals in our streets.”

[snip]

And he has [4] maintained from the start that Smith’s investigations into his efforts to reverse his defeat — as well as his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House — are examples of the weaponization of government against him that must be avenged.

[snip]

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice [5] has been weaponized against me and other Republicans,” Trump wrote when announcing his new pick, longtime ally Pam Bondi, in a post on Truth Social. “Not anymore. Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, [b] and Making America Safe Again.”

There are plenty of ways people who chose to engage in journalism could debunk these false claims: to point out that Joe Biden was also investigated for retaining classified documents, to describe that a former Trump US Attorney, Robert Hur, found characteristics that distinguished Trump’s case from Biden’s, to explain what those distinctions were — Trump’s year-long effort to hide documents from DOJ. Regarding January 6, a journalist might explain that hundreds of other people were charged with the same main crime — obstructing the vote certification — as Trump was, but in his case the fraudulent certificates made the evidence even stronger.

At the very least, describe — in detail! — what Trump was charged with! WaPo chooses not to do that.

On the claims of politicization, the laziest reporter might note at least that Joe Biden’s own son was prosecuted on two coasts, along with three high profile Democrats — Bob Menendez, Henry Cuellar, and Eric Adams.

Trump’s claim that Biden’s DOJ targeted Republicans is laughable, and yet four self-imagined journalists repeated the claim as if it were true.

Trump’s claims that Biden’s DOJ didn’t prosecute violent criminals in the streets bears special focus, since hundreds of the January 6ers — people Trump has suggested he’ll pardon — are just that: people convicted of violently assaulting cops.

And his claim that Pam Bondi will fight crime as if Merrick Garland did not? For fuck sake, people, mention that crime rates came down under Biden.

WaPo packages up all this unrebutted propaganda as a process story. Twelve paragraphs in, it addresses the question of whether Trump will be able to fire career employees. In ¶15, it describes the make-up of Jack Smith’s team.

But it’s all buried under dumb repetition of Trump’s attack on rule of law, as if the attack were true. WaPo just couldn’t be bothered to conduct the least little act of journalism on that point, and so simply repeated Trump’s false claims of grievance with no correction.

And as such, the article itself becomes part of precisely the outrageous abuse it describes: the creation of a false myth of grievance by burying (literally in Trump’s case and figuratively in the case of four people calling themselves journalists) the reality about rule of law.