This is an adapted excerpt from the Oct. 9 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
On Thursday, New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted by Donald Trump’s Justice Department on one count of bank fraud and one count of false statements to a financial institution.
This is one of those situations where basically everyone in the political world saw it coming. That’s because 20 days ago, Trump explicitly directed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to indict his political opponents on obviously trumped-up charges, posting this message on Truth Social:
Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” … We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT
At the time, given how brazen that was, there was speculation that it was supposed to be a private directive to his attorney general and, according to The Wall Street Journal, that speculation was correct.
“Trump meant to send a private message to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging her to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and his other favored targets, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter,” the Journal reported. “Trump believed he had sent Bondi the message directly, addressing it to ‘Pam,’ and was surprised to learn it was public, the officials said.”
Public or private, that message was received. Trump’s U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, was pushed out, reportedly because he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to charge James or former FBI Director James Comey.
Siebert was then replaced with Trump’s former personal attorney Lindsey Halligan, who had no previous experience as a prosecutor. It is not even clear if Halligan was legally appointed to the job in the first place. But she got to work anyway and immediately indicted Comey, who was arraigned on Wednesday, following up with James’ indictment on Thursday.
A sitting president doing this out in the open would have, I believe, ended the career of any commander in chief not named Trump. He has directly ordered the pretextual prosecutions of people he does not like in a ham-fisted, retaliatory, lawless fashion that violates the laws of the country, the letter of the Constitution and the spirit of liberty.
Putting your political opponents in jail because they are your opponents, not because of what they did, is the heart of tyranny. It’s an obviously impeachable offense. If there is any silver lining here, it is that the targets of Trump’s ire are not going quietly. Much like Comey before her, James released a video statement stating in no uncertain terms that these baseless charges are an act of retaliation for her office suing the Trump Organization. “This is nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system,” James said. “He is forcing federal law enforcement agencies to do his bidding, all because I did my job as the New York state attorney general. These charges are baseless, and the president’s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost.” “I am a proud woman of faith, and I know that faith and fear cannot share the same space,” James continued. “And so today I am not fearful, I am fearless, and as my faith teaches me, no weapon formed against me shall prosper. We will fight these baseless charges aggressively, and my office will continue to fiercely protect New Yorkers and their rights. And I will continue to do my job.” But it’s been less than three weeks since Trump made that post calling for Comey, James and Sen. Adam Schiff of California to be indicted. So far, he’s already gotten his way in two out of the three cases.
Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MS NOW. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press).
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
Latest Post
Recommended
