The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The Trump White House just managed to do the legal equivalent of tripping over a rake in front of a DC grand jury. Prosecutors tried to get an indictment of Cassidy Hutchinson — the former Trump aide who torched him before the January 6th committee — and the grand jury basically responded, "No, we’re not jailing people for telling the truth so you can feel big on Truth Social." Failing at the grand jury stage, where the government literally scripts the whole show, is a special kind of humiliating.

Yes, the administration still bleeds its enemies dry with legal costs and stress, but when you swing this wildly and miss this often, you don’t look like a fearsome autocrat; you look like a petty thug who can’t read the manual on authoritarianism. A competent would-be Orban spends years quietly consolidating power. Trump is out here loudly advertising his abuses of power while simultaneously proving he’s too impulsive and inept to pull them off. The danger is still very real — the intent is fascistic — but the execution? Full clown car.

The Trump administration has decided that if you can't erase the Russia investigation from history, you can at least keep indicting the guy who started it on loop. Former FBI Director James Comey has now been charged for a third time by federal prosecutors, this round for "transmission of national defense information" and conspiracy to do the same. The case has been quietly humming along under seal since Oct. 5, because nothing screams healthy democracy like secret prosecutions of the president’s enemies.

Comey, who has not yet been indicted in this particular case, is now essentially a full-time defendant in Trump’s personal revenge cinematic universe. His lawyers have already moved to dismiss the charges, presumably on the radical theory that criminal statutes aren’t supposed to double as the president’s feelings-management tool. Meanwhile, the Justice Department continues its transformation into Trump’s private law firm with badges, happily converting every presidential grudge into a national security case. Separation of powers? No, but we do offer unlimited persecution of disfavored witnesses.

The Trump DOJ has decided that the real victim of a decade of investigations into Russian interference and stolen classified documents is, naturally, Donald Trump. So former CIA director John Brennan is getting dragged before a Florida grand jury in a sweeping "grand conspiracy" probe built on the premise that law enforcement officials conspired to violate Trump’s civil rights by investigating his crimes. When you’re facing multiple indictments, why not just indict reality instead?

The subpoena landed the same day the original ringmaster of this circus, Joe diGenova, abruptly quit after the White House and DOJ reportedly got cranky about his pace. The consolation prize? Brennan’s lawyer is now dealing with Kurt Olsen, the guy who tried to get DOJ to back Trump’s bogus 2020 election fraud claims. So the investigation into whether Trump’s critics formed a shadowy deep-state cabal is being shepherded by a man who tried to help overturn an election. Perfectly normal justice system, nothing to see here.

Brennan is also still a "target" in a separate Washington probe into whether he lied to Congress in 2023, a charge he denies, while he sues to preserve records so he can argue this is all vindictive prosecution. Because when a former president openly demands retribution against his perceived enemies, and the machinery of the state dutifully cranks up to oblige, that’s not authoritarian score-settling at all — that’s just America’s new favorite sport: prosecute the investigators.

Jim Jordan and the House Judiciary Republicans have helpfully clarified what “oversight” means in Trump’s second term: if you investigate the Dear Leader, you get investigated for investigating the Dear Leader. The GOP-controlled committee has sent a criminal referral for former special counsel Jack Smith to Trump’s acting attorney general Todd Blanche, accusing Smith of lying to Congress because he described getting lawmakers’ toll records and not, apparently, the magical text-message treasure trove Republicans now wish they had asked him about. The new standard appears to be: if the witness doesn’t answer the question you should have asked in your head, that’s a felony.

Smith’s lawyers pointed out the obvious — that he gave “truthful, responsive answers,” and that the real "crime" is that Trump has “repeatedly ordered that Mr Smith be prosecuted and jailed.” So yes, the House is now doing direct contract work for Trump’s revenge fantasies, and they even put it in writing. Jamie Raskin politely translated the stunt: Republicans are mad Jack Smith isn’t a mind reader, and this referral would get laughed out of any actual courtroom not staffed by Trump appointees auditioning for lifetime Fox contracts.

The punchline: Todd Blanche, architect of the Epstein cover-up and Trump’s “super pardon” slush fund, is up for permanent attorney general, and he’s the one who will decide whether to charge the guy who prosecuted Trump. The same Justice Department that already face-planted trying to criminally nail James Comey and Letitia James now promises to “investigate all evidence of criminal conduct” — which, under Trump, mostly means anyone who once made him look bad on cable news. Rule of law has officially been replaced with Rule of Trump, and the House GOP is racing to prove how fast they can fetch.

The Trump Justice Department, having already worked through the greatest hits of political enemies — James Comey, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, John Brennan — is now apparently leveling its awesome prosecutorial might at the real threat to the republic: an 82-year-old writer who says Donald Trump sexually assaulted her decades ago. E. Jean Carroll, who has never held office, run an agency, or commanded anything more authoritarian than a book deadline, is now at the center of a federal criminal inquiry because she had the audacity to win civil cases against the guy who keeps telling us he’s the most persecuted man alive.

Prosecutors are reportedly digging into donations from a Reid Hoffman–linked nonprofit, American Future Republic, which helped pay Carroll’s legal bills, and are scrutinizing whether her answers about that funding in civil proceedings were perfectly, surgically precise. The nonprofit — not Carroll, for now — is said to be the formal target, but sources are already floating the classic Trump-era caveat: that could change. So the message from the federal government is clear: if you accuse the president of sexual assault and successfully hold him accountable in court, the state may come knocking to audit your support network and comb your testimony for any slip it can criminalize.

This isn’t law enforcement; it’s a federally funded intimidation campaign dressed up as a paperwork review. After years of Trump demanding revenge on anyone who crossed him, his Justice Department appears to be obligingly expanding the enemies list from former FBI directors and state attorneys general to private citizens whose only public act was saying, under oath, what he did to them. Rule of law has been replaced with rule of Trump: cross the man, and the machinery of government will find a pretext to put you under a microscope — especially if you helped prove in court what he really is.

Donald Trump has discovered a new use for the presidency: local Kentucky HR manager. Perpetually aggrieved that Rep. Thomas Massie occasionally remembers Congress is supposed to be a separate branch of government, Trump is now throwing the weight of the Oval Office behind Massie’s primary challenger in hopes of finally firing the guy who keeps reading the Constitution at the staff meeting.

Massie, a seven-term Republican and professional pebble in Trump’s shoe, has long annoyed the Dear Leader by doing unpatriotic things like questioning executive power grabs and occasionally voting like Congress is more than a fan club. So Trump is deploying his favorite governing tool — public revenge endorsements — to send a message to the rest of the GOP: toe the line, or the president will personally show up in your district to replace you with someone who thinks Article II gives him the right to rearrange your career.

Donald Trump has suddenly rediscovered "fiscal sanity", and—what an incredible coincidence—it showed up just in time to veto a bill finishing a Colorado water pipeline backed by people who aren’t exactly in his fan club. The White House claims this is about protecting taxpayers, which is adorable coming from the guy who turned the national debt into his own personal beanstalk while shoveling tax cuts at billionaires and defense contractors like Halloween candy.

Critics, meanwhile, are pointing out the obvious: this looks a lot less like sober budgeting and a lot more like petty political retribution dressed up in an accountant’s visor. In other words, if you cross Trump, even basic infrastructure like drinking water becomes a hostage in his never-ending revenge tour. Because nothing says responsible governance like weaponizing water access to settle political scores—but sure, let’s call it fiscal prudence and not what it is: targeted punishment with a line-item veto.