It is a phrase commonly attributed to Oscar Raimundo Benavides, Peru’s fascist dictator in the 1930s: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.” The Peruvian general, who first rose to power by way of a coup, used the phrase to summarize a straightforward authoritarian concept: Those aligned with the strongman who consolidated power can expect generous benefits; those opposed should expect to become targets of the state.
In 2025, it’s a maxim with renewed significance in the United States.
In the first week of Donald Trump’s second term as president, the Republican made his priorities clear by issuing sweeping pardons to Jan. 6 criminals, including violent felons who were in prison for assaulting police. In the president’s second week, Trump turned his attention from law-breakers to law-enforcers: As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim reported, the White House fired multiple top FBI officials and federal prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases as part of a stunning Friday night news dump.
Citing Trump’s sweeping pardon for Jan. 6 defendants, a letter firing multiple federal prosecutors stated that their role in the Jan. 6 prosecutions was the reason for their dismissal, NBC News reported. One of the fired prosecutors, a former assistant U.S. attorney who handled some of the Jan. 6 criminal cases, told Politico that 25 to 30 of his colleagues were fired and others were moved to different offices.
The purge within federal law enforcement is very likely to intensify: Politico reported over the weekend, “Thousands of FBI agents and employees are being asked by Justice Department leadership to fill out a 12-question survey detailing their roles in investigations stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.”
The purge, in other words, appears likely to get even worse.
None of the FBI officials who’ve been fired — or those being considered for possible firing — has been credibly accused of wrongdoing. On the contrary, they did their jobs, did them well, and participated in the largest federal law enforcement effort in the history of the bureau, holding criminals responsible for an insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump, the convicted felon who once vowed to make the Jan. 6 rioters “pay” for their crimes, has now decided not only to shield the criminals from accountability, but also to punish those who enforced the laws of his own country.
It’s the latest in a series of dizzying developments related to Trump, his revenge tour, his White House team, and federal law enforcement. Indeed, over the last week, Americans have seen a series of related developments:
- Trump fired prosecutors who worked with former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations;
- Trump fired prosecutors who worked on Jan. 6 cases;
- Trump fired senior FBI officials, including the assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office, who helped oversee Jan. 6 cases;
- Trump’s Justice Department abandoned charges against the president’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case;
- Trump’s Justice Department abandoned the criminal case against a former Republican congressman who’d already been found guilty of corruption by a jury;
- Trump’s Justice Department took steps to abandon a criminal investigation against an incumbent Republican congressman.
All of this, of course, followed a series of pardons for criminals politically aligned with the White House, which came on the heels of earlier pardons for seven former GOP lawmakers convicted in corruption cases.
Taken individually, the disparate stories are scary and infuriating in equal measure. But taken together, an even more unsettling image comes into view:
They’re not disparate stories. They’re the same story.
For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.
Some of the White House’s partisan allies might be tempted to argue that this is a continuation of recent corruption. Those claims will be wrong: The Biden administration successfully prosecuted an incumbent Democratic senator, criminally indicted an incumbent Democratic congressman, searched the home of an incumbent Democratic mayor, launched an investigation targeting an incumbent Democratic congresswoman, and criminally indicted the incumbent Democratic mayor of the nation’s largest city. Team Trump’s campaign to kneecap the rule of law, in contrast has been fast, thorough and systematic. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement, “If allowed to proceed, Trump’s purge of our federal law enforcement workforce will expose America to authoritarianism and dictatorship.” The New York Times’ David French added, “There’s a very real question as to whether federal law will apply to Trump’s allies at all during Trump’s term. The atmosphere of impunity may be like nothing we’ve seen in our lifetimes.” It’s a critically important detail. The underlying message of Team Trump’s latest campaign against federal law enforcement is that Justice Department officials and the FBI need to exercise caution: If they try to hold Trump or his allies accountable for suspected crimes, the only people who’ll be punished are those who try to enforce the law. Similarly, Republicans aligned with the White House are receiving a related message: They can do as they please, without regard for legal limits, knowing that the president has created an accountability-free zone for himself and those who agree to follow him. The result is a crisis unlikely any in modern American history. As Rachel explained during Friday’s show, in reference to the president and his team, “They are not trying to get rid of an investigation. They’re trying to get rid of American law enforcement as we know it. They are trying to get rid of the very idea of an independent, justice-is-blind system that makes America who we are.” Rachel added that we’re confronting a dynamic that would represent “an end to the idea that law enforcement pursues justice without regard to favors and preferences dictated by the people in power.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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