The Trump Presidency Timeline

Jack Smith went to the House Judiciary Committee to do the unthinkable in Trump's America: calmly explain that prosecuting crimes is not, in fact, a partisan coup. In a closed-door session demanded by Republicans who then immediately leaked the parts they thought helped them, Smith said he brought charges against Trump "without regard" to his politics, beliefs, or 2024 candidacy — because nothing says "witch hunt" like following the evidence and the statute book.

Smith told lawmakers his team had "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" that Trump took part in a criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election, plus "powerful evidence" that he willfully hoarded classified documents and tried to obstruct justice to cover it up. In other words, the stuff we all watched play out on live television and then read about in the indictment like it was a greatest-hits compilation of felonies. Smith even said that, given the same facts, he'd prosecute a former president again, Republican or Democrat — a cute, old-fashioned belief in equal application of the law that really doesn’t fit the current GOP brand.

Of course, all of this is happening after Trump's 2024 win, when the Justice Department helpfully tossed the election case and walked away from the classified documents prosecution like it was a drink someone else ordered. So the Republican-led committee hauled in the guy whose cases they helped kill, so they could accuse him of being political for daring to bring them in the first place. Because nothing screams "rule of law" like punishing the prosecutor for proving your cult leader did crimes.

Smith is also reportedly trying to correct GOP "mischaracterizations" of his work, including the horror that investigators obtained phone records of some Republican members of Congress — you know, the ones who were texting their way through a coup plot. But sure, the real scandal here is not the attempted overthrow of an election; it's that the people investigating it had the nerve to follow the evidence. America: where the crimes are public, the accountability is secret, and the retribution is televised.

Jack Smith went to the Hill to answer for his unspeakable crime: investigating the crimes Donald Trump actually committed. The former special counsel, who brought two now-dropped criminal cases against Trump — one for hoarding classified documents like they were Trump steaks, the other for trying to overturn an election — told the House judiciary committee that the basis for the prosecutions "rests entirely with President Trump and his actions." In other words: if you don’t want to be investigated for a coup, maybe don’t do a coup.

Jim Jordan, the human embodiment of a forwarded Facebook chain email, insisted the whole thing was “political” and “about going after our candidate for president, President Trump” — because nothing says totally innocent man like needing the House GOP to run PR damage control in a secret hearing. Smith, who actually requested a public hearing, calmly explained that Trump and his buddies tried to pressure Members of Congress to delay certification of the 2020 election. “I didn’t choose those Members; President Trump did,” he noted — a very polite way of saying, "your guy dialed his own co-conspirators."

Democrats who were in the room said Smith answered every question and that a public hearing would have been “absolutely devastating to the president,” which is of course why Republicans made sure it was behind closed doors. Meanwhile, the GOP is outraged — outraged! — that investigators looked at data from conservative groups and a handful of Republican senators while investigating an attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. Because nothing screams “weaponization of government” like law enforcement checking the phone records of the people whose supporters tried to beat cops with flagpoles to stop the peaceful transfer of power.

Smith’s bottom line: he’d bring the same prosecutions again on the same facts, regardless of party. The DOJ’s bottom line: you apparently can’t prosecute a sitting president, even if he tried to overthrow the last election to become a sitting president again. But sure, tell us more about how the real abuse of the legal system is the guy who followed department policy while investigating a president who didn’t follow any policy, law, norm, or basic human instinct for shame.

The FCC quietly deleted the word “independent” from its mission statement while its Trump-loyalist chair Brendan Carr was testifying to the Senate that, actually, the agency isn’t independent “formally speaking.” Because nothing says "we’re definitely not becoming authoritarian state media" like live-editing your own website mid-hearing to line up with Dear Leader’s power grab.

Carr, who’s been moonlighting as Trump’s personal TV hall monitor, previously leaned on networks over Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes about the MAGA movement, warning broadcasters they could change their behavior “the easy way or the hard way.” In other words: nice broadcast license you’ve got there, shame if something regulatory happened to it. But sure, this is just about the timeless and totally-not-vague-at-all “public interest standard” from 1934, not about punishing criticism of Trump.

Senators Amy Klobuchar, Ed Markey, and Tammy Baldwin took turns pointing out that this looks a lot like government censorship and a lot less like neutral oversight, with Baldwin flatly calling Carr a “parrot for President Trump.” Carr responded by insisting broadcasters are finally being “held accountable” under hoax and news distortion rules — conveniently enforced against Trump critics and Trump-critical outlets. So the FCC has gone from “independent agency overseen by Congress” to “Trump’s Content Moderation Team,” but hey, at least they updated the website to match the coup.

Jack Smith showed up to Capitol Hill to explain the wild, radical theory that if you have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a president ran a criminal scheme to overturn an election and hoarded classified documents, you should maybe, possibly, consider charging him. In other words, basic rule-of-law stuff — which of course means he’s now being hauled in front of Jim Jordan’s "Oversight and Retaliation Committee" for the crime of doing his job before Trump got back the nuclear codes and the DOJ.

Smith told lawmakers that the evidence "rests entirely with President Trump and his actions," which is very rude because the official MAGA line is that the real criminals are FBI lawyers, election workers, and that one Republican county clerk who didn’t "find" enough votes. Republicans are especially outraged that their phone records were subpoenaed, because nothing says "totally innocent" like panicking over who the prosecutor saw you calling on January 6.

The hearing is, naturally, closed-door — not because Smith wanted it that way (he volunteered for an open hearing), but because nothing says "transparency" like silencing the guy who investigated your dear leader while you publicly smear him as a "criminal" who should be "put in prison." This is the same justice system that recently tried to prosecute James Comey over old testimony with a prosecutor a judge later ruled was improperly appointed — because if you can’t jail the people who investigated Trump, you can at least prove the entire system now exists to deter anyone from trying again.

Nonprofits across America are frantically scrubbing their IRS filings like it’s 1953 and Joe McCarthy just discovered the word “inclusion.” After Trump ordered his administration to root out “illegal” diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts — because nothing says law and order like threatening charities that help poor kids and sick people — more than 1,000 nonprofits quietly rewrote their mission statements to delete words like “disadvantaged,” “underrepresented,” and “racial equity.”

UNICEF USA no longer wants “a more equitable world for every child,” just a “better” one — whatever that means when the government has made “equity” a suspect word. The American Athletic Conference is still into “inclusion,” but apparently diversity and equity had to go live on a farm upstate. Community health centers now serve “all” instead of “medically underserved populations,” because if you don’t name the people being shafted, then surely the inequity disappears. Meanwhile, the Trump White House and IRS won’t even comment, while civil rights groups sue over these executive orders calling them unconstitutional and based on a “blatant and corrosive lie.”

In other words, Trump couldn’t repeal the Civil Rights Act, so he’s trying to intimidate anyone who notices racism still exists. Charities reliant on federal money — and even plenty that aren’t — are preemptively censoring themselves to avoid MAGA inquisitions into their HR trainings. But sure, the real “pernicious discrimination” here is a hospital hiring a DEI director, not the government using funding and investigations to scare organizations out of helping the people Trump’s base would prefer remain invisible.

NPR is apparently doing historical preservation now, inviting Leon Panetta — an actual former White House chief of staff from a functioning government — to talk about Susie Wiles and her interpretive dance version of the job in the Trump administration. Panetta once managed Bill Clinton’s West Wing; Wiles manages Donald Trump’s ego, legal exposure, and vendetta calendar — because nothing says "chief of staff" like doubling as the in-house retribution coordinator.

The segment teases a sober, institutional view of the role while Trump World treats it as a mix of concierge service, loyalty enforcement, and election-subversion logistics. In other words, Panetta is describing how the job works in a democracy, while Susie Wiles is busy showing us how it works in a personality cult that’s still mad the coup paperwork didn’t go through. But sure, let’s pretend this is just another normal chapter in American governance and not a live-fire stress test of whether the rule of law can survive a Mar-a-Lago guest list.

Susie Wiles, Trump’s famously silent White House chief of staff, apparently used all her inside voice at once for Vanity Fair, giving author Chris Whipple 11 on-the-record interviews over a year. Because nothing says "tight, disciplined operation" like your top aide unloading to a glossy magazine about how the West Wing is a clown car on fire. Whipple calls it reporter lightning; the Trump White House calls it Tuesday.

In those chats, Wiles took a blowtorch to pretty much everyone: Attorney General Pam Bondi, she says, "completely whiffed" on the Epstein files, which is a nice, polite way of saying "you had one job." Vice President J.D. Vance gets tagged as a "conspiracy theorist," which, in this administration, is like calling someone "middle management"—technically descriptive, but wildly understated. And for the big finale, Wiles describes Donald Trump as having "an alcoholic's personality." Trump, a non-drinker, then proudly confirms this to the New York Post because of course he does: "She's right. I do have an obsessive and addictive personality." In other words, the guy with the nuclear codes just self-identified as constitutionally incapable of moderation.

After the piece drops, Wiles storms onto X to denounce it as a "disingenuously framed hit piece" that paints an "overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative" about the president and his team—carefully avoiding disputing any actual facts. Whipple calmly notes that "not a single fact in the piece has been contested," which is journalist-speak for "they’re mad we printed what they said." So the chief of staff confirms the chaos, the president confirms his addictive personality, and no one disputes the reporting—but sure, the real problem here is the framing.