Trump and Miller’s retribution in opposition to Democrats has an insidious technique

[ad_1] The Trump Justice Division’s indictment of former FBI director James Comey has been acquired with widespread incredulity, each due to the shady circumstances round its submitting and the extraordinary weakness of the case.

But Lindsay Halligan, the US lawyer who introduced that indictment, appears unbothered. Certainly, she in a short time moved on to the following activity at hand: getting New York Legal professional Common Letitia James indicted for similarly dubious prices, which she completed Thursday.

In the meantime, White Home Deputy Chief of Employees Stephen Miller is heading a sweeping effort that he hopes will get main Democratic teams and donors indicted for supporting purported “left-wing terrorism.” This appears equally unlikely to stay in court docket.

Watching all this unfold — the weaponization of the US Justice Division, in efforts that principally appear groundless or doomed — I’ve recalled a phrase Steve Bannon coined throughout President Donald Trump’s first time period. Describing how the fitting might push again in opposition to the mainstream media, Bannon mentioned they needed to “flood the zone with shit.”

Trump and Miller, it appears, try to focus on the opposition by flooding the zone with shit. They'll deliver one bogus investigation and prosecution after one other. If one flops, they’ll swiftly transfer on to the following — typically, maybe, in opposition to the identical folks already indicted. (There may be already speak in MAGA-land of what else Comey could be charged with , and a separate US lawyer’s workplace is looking into James on different subjects.)

The principle level shouldn't be actually to win convictions. Trump’s workforce would after all love that, but when they needed to construct circumstances that may really maintain up in court docket, they’d be going about issues very otherwise.

As an alternative, the aim is to place Trump’s enemies, and the Democratic opposition extra broadly, via the wringer — once more, and once more, and once more till January 2029. Or even perhaps after that.

Trump is focusing on his private enemies. Stephen Miller needs a broader crackdown on the opposition.

There’s a notable distinction between who the president and his strongest adviser appear most centered on focusing on.

For President Trump, the whole lot is private, and he’s been keenly fascinated about bringing vindictive prosecutions in opposition to specific people he’s feuded with.

Usually, these targets have been individuals who have been concerned in investigations of Trump, like Comey and James — the primary two indicted. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has been focused with a mortgage investigation. Former CIA director John Brennan and former FBI director Chris Wray are also targets , as is Fulton County district lawyer Fani Willis .

To go after these targets, Trump’s allies have rummaged via their mortgage information or previous congressional testimony in hopes of discovering one thing that prosecutors can argue was a false assertion or crime.

Trump’s justification can be: “They did it to me first.” He’d say that is merely what he and his allies have gone via for the previous decade: repeated investigations throughout his first time period, and finally, 4 prosecutions through the Biden years, a authorized saga that solely got here to an finish when he received in 2024.

A few of Trump’s complaints are specious — he was prosecuted for making an attempt to steal the 2020 election, one thing he actually did do — however others have not less than a grain of fact to them. Elected Democratic prosecutors in New York state did indeed spend years digging via his enterprise historical past looking for any prices that would stick with him or his household.

Miller, however, apparently needs to focus on the political opposition extra broadly and strategically — by going after key Democratic and progressive organizations and donors.

Miller has been livid for months about protests of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers who're finishing up the mass deportation marketing campaign that's his brainchild . However after Charlie Kirk’s killing final month, he started placing collectively a multi-agency effort to go after the funding and group of the left.

In accordance with a report from Reuters , Miller’s effort is protests the place violence or vandalism occurred in hopes of accusing teams that supported or inspired these protests of fomenting left-wing terrorism in some unlawful means or one other.

“We have to use our anti-terrorism legal guidelines, our RICO [racketeering] statutes, our conspiracy statutes — we have to use each software in our legislation enforcement arsenal to crush these left-wing terrorists legally, financially, and politically, and to chop off their funding sources, and throw them in jail,” Mike Davis, a authorized activist near the Trump administration, advised Rolling Stone .

One main goal of this push to this point is the Open Society Foundations, the grantmaking community funded by billionaire George Soros. A high-level Division of Justice official reportedly instructed US lawyer’s places of work to analyze the community late final month. One White Home official was fairly frank in regards to the political purpose, telling Reuters : “The aim is to destabilize Soros’s community.”

Different potential targets that got here up in Reuters’s reporting included ActBlue — the most important on-line fundraising platform for Democratic candidates that Trump ordered the DOJ to investigate in April — and Indivisible — the progressive organizing group.

“Trump goes after boilerplate liberal nonprofits,” the leftist commentator Adam Johnson posted on X . “This isn’t even a warfare on the left, it’s a warfare on the left AND mainline democrats as a result of republicans wish to run with out significant opposition in 2026 and 2028.”

Flooding the zone with shit may not result in convictions. However it might imply a four-year authorized nightmare.

The issue for each Trump and Miller, and the silver lining for his or her targets, is that, to this point, these circumstances appear extraordinarily weak.

The Comey and James indictments appear deeply flawed , and it will likely be fairly a attain to hyperlink progressive teams or donors to precise violence, significantly with out operating afoul of the First Modification.

Most of those prosecutions seem more likely to collapse, both at trial or earlier than. (Although it’s not essentially clear that each one of them will. Maybe some could possibly be introduced in pink jurisdictions and draw MAGA-aligned judges like Aileen Cannon .)

And but, if one prosecution flops, the Trump administration can merely deliver one other — even perhaps in opposition to the identical individual.

Over the previous decade, MAGA enforcers and foot troopers have gotten fairly good at concocting artistic logical chains and authorized theories to argue that their enemies are responsible of crimes.

That's to say: A fast defeat of the fees in court docket may not — most likely received’t, the truth is — be the top of the story for Comey, James, or different Trump targets. Trump’s appointees can merely deliver bogus prices in opposition to them on different subjects, guaranteeing their authorized nightmare received’t finish, not less than till he leaves workplace.