President Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department to punish people who investigated, prosecuted or simply angered him continued last Thursday with the indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, my law school classmate, for mortgage fraud and false statements.
The indictment by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia followed the Sept. 25 indictment in the same district of former FBI Director James Comey on charges of making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of a congressional proceeding.
James and I have been friends since we were Howard University law school students in the 1980s, when we often discussed politics and public service. I have long been impressed by her dedication to achieve justice and her commitment to positive change.
Comey and James are both honorable public servants with distinguished records and have said they are innocent of all charges. From what we know publicly, the accusations against them don’t appear to merit criminal charges and are vindictive prosecutions ordered by Trump.
Trump’s vendetta against public servants fulfills his 2024 campaign pledge to act against his political enemies. “I am your warrior,” Trump told supporters. “I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
A partial Trump enemies list being investigated by the Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi includes Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton; his former FBI director, Christopher Wray; and former CIA Director John Brennan, all of whom became became Trump critics after leaving office. It also includes Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who as a House member helped prosecute Trump in the president’s first impeachment trial; Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis, who filed charges against Trump, accusing him and others of seeking to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss in the state; and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.
The career federal prosecutors who investigated Comey and James found insufficient evidence to file charges against them. That would normally end the cases against the two. But that didn’t stop Trump from demanding they be prosecuted.
On Sept. 20, Trump wrote a social media post expressing his frustration with Bondi because Comey, James and Schiff hadn’t been charged with any crimes.
“They’re all guilty as hell,” Trump wrote of the three, in what The Wall Street Journal reported Trump mistakenly believed was a private message to Bondi. “We can’t delay any longer …. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED NOW!!!”
Trump’s vision of how the Justice Department should operate describes how “justice” is delivered in dictatorships like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Cuba. In those countries, government officials decide whom they want to prosecute — including people who have committed no crimes — and then concoct trumped-up charges to file against them.
James, a Democrat, angered Trump by filing fraud charges against him in New York accusing him of inflating his worth to get a lower interest rate on loans. A judge ruled that Trump, his businesses and his two oldest sons committed fraud and must pay a penalty of about $500 million (including interest), but an appeals court threw out the award as an “excessive fine.”
Trump fired Comey as FBI director in 2017 after Comey refused to pledge personal loyalty to him and because the FBI under Comey investigated possible coordination between Trump’s first presidential campaign and Russia, which wanted Trump to win. Trump called the allegations of coordination a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.”
This year, Trump forced out career prosecutor Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney he appointed for the Eastern District of Virginia, for not prosecuting Comey and James. The president appointed one of his former personal attorneys, Lindsey Halligan, to succeed Siebert, even though Halligan had never prosecuted a single case. Halligan then filed charges against Comey and James.
Back when James and I were in law school classes together and talking about our hopes and plans for the future, I never imagined she would become New York’s attorney general. And if anyone had told me a president would someday demand she be prosecuted, I would have assumed the person was drunk, high on drugs, crazy — or all three.
But we live in a nation led by a man far more interested in vengeance than justice. He is directing the Justice Department to go after dedicated public servants simply trying to do their jobs.
The future of America’s justice system hangs in the balance. I hope our courts do their job and uphold the rule of law and do not allow themselves to become instruments of unconstitutional political prosecutions that have no place in our country. Dictatorial regimes should not be our role models.
A. Scott Bolden is an attorney, NewsNation contributor, former chair of the Washington, D.C. Democratic Party and a former New York state prosecutor.
