When then-Rep. Adam Schiff helped lead the first impeachment effort against Donald Trump, the president clearly saw the California Democrat as a threat and made every effort to smear and discredit him. When Schiff helped lead the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee, Trump’s condemnations of the lawmaker became even more hysterical.

But in the president’s second term, the Republican apparently isn’t content simply to whine about Schiff’s neck. On the contrary, Trump apparently wants the Democratic senator to be prosecuted.

On Tuesday morning, the president, himself a convicted felon, used his social media platform to accuse Schiff of “mortgage fraud” and being “a Crook.” Soon after, Trump declared on camera that he would “love” to see the Californian “brought to justice.”

As The Washington Post reported, at least some officials in the administration appear to be taking this seriously.

[A] senior administration official told The Washington Post that a criminal case had been referred to the Justice Department, in a sharp escalation of the White House’s attacks on vocal Trump critics. … The senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said criminal prosecution is now up to the Justice Department. The official added that ‘this is just the beginning, unfortunately,’ for Schiff.

While these details haven’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, the reporting and Trump’s public rhetoric leave little doubt that the president is no longer content to pursue Schiff with juvenile name-calling.

To the extent that the underlying substance matters, the allegations appear quite thin. From the Post’s report:

Designating a home as a primary residence, instead of a secondary home or investment property, can get borrowers lower rates because primary homes are seen as less risky to lenders. But a spokesperson for Schiff’s office said the lenders for Schiff’s homes in both California and Washington were ‘well aware’ of his intended year-round use of both homes while in public office and that neither of the properties was a vacation home.

“This is just Donald Trump’s latest attempt at political retaliation against his perceived enemies,” Schiff wrote online. “So it is not a surprise, only how weak this false allegation turns out to be.”

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Time will tell what, if anything, comes of this, but the escalation is itself emblematic of Trump’s authoritarian vision: The president hates Schiff, and so the president’s operation has referred Schiff to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.

It comes on the heels of Trump threatening to prosecute a news organization for running reports he didn’t like. Which came on the heels of Trump musing publicly about arresting a Democratic mayoral candidate he doesn’t like. Which came on the heels of Trump endorsing the arrest of a Democratic governor who has opposed the White House’s agenda. Which came on the heels of Trump ordering a Justice Department investigation into his Democratic predecessor without cause.

And that’s just from the last month or so.

For all of the seemingly sincere apoplexy in GOP circles about the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement, the current Republican administration is doing the one thing Republicans said they considered intolerable.