Donald Trump and his team are not easily satisfied. For example, the president and his White House operation targeted one law firm; they bullied it into submission; and then they moved onto other firms. Team Trump targeted one university; it caved; and the administration quickly took aim at other schools.
Just last week, after Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair succeeded in temporarily forcing Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show off of ABC, Brendan Carr told Fox News the developments were an “important turning point,” said there was “more work to go” and quickly turned his attention to “The View.”
Now, the president has successfully orchestrated the indictment of one of his political enemies, former FBI Director James Comey, in an unusually brazen example of corrupting the criminal justice system. What are the odds that the Republican will feel satiated and curtail his revenge campaign?
Roughly zero. NBC News reported:
As he departed the White House for the Ryder Cup tournament, Trump was asked by a reporter who ‘the next person on your list in this retribution’ will be now that Comey has been indicted. ‘It’s not a list. I think there will be others. I mean they’re corrupt,’ Trump said. ‘These were corrupt radical left Democrats because Comey was essentially a — he’s worse than a Democrat.’
Obviously, this was largely gibberish. Neither the president nor those around him have ever presented credible evidence of his Democratic foes being “corrupt.” On the contrary, those looking for evidence of actual corruption should look no further than Trump’s charges against Comey.
Q: Now that Comey has been indicted, who is the next person on your list?TRUMP: It's not a list, but I think they'll be others. I mean, they're corrupt. These were corrupt radical left Democrats.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-09-26T14:11:40.748Z
The president added that the case against the former FBI director is “not revenge.” No serious person could believe such an absurdity.
Indeed, as we’ve discussed, Erik Siebert, the Trump-nominated U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, refused to pursue this case, insisting that it lacked merit. Career prosecutors explained in detail and in writing that the evidence didn’t support charging Comey. By some accounts, Attorney General Pam Bondi herself was not on board with this indictment and voiced concerns behind the scenes.
Even John Durham, a Trump-appointed special counsel, reviewed the allegations and opted not to follow through on them. The prosecution is advancing anyway because Trump fired the prosecutor who insisted on following the law, ignored the career prosecutors who did their job, dismissed the concerns of his sycophantic attorney general and used an unqualified loyalist, just days into her tenure, to exact revenge against a former ally who dared to cross him. MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian reported that within the Justice Department, many insiders believe this is “among the worst abuses” in the history of the institution. “There will be others” suggests that we ought to append a caveat: this is among the worst abuses so far. Because Comey is hardly the only, or the last, person on Trump’s enemies list.
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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