Efforts to politicitize DOJ concern many

Trump post directed Bondi to go after rivals

By: Phillip M. Bailey
USA Today

..... President Donald Trump has amped up pressure on his administration to punish longstanding rivals and political opposition, first on September 20 [2025] by demanding that his attorney general go after them and then vowing the next day to target "radical left manics"" at the Charlie Kirk memorial.
..... Speaking to tens of thousands of mourners who flocked to Arizona in remembrance of the slain 31-year-old activist, Trump pointed out that unlike Kirk, he dislikes his political foes.
..... "That's where I disagreed with Charlie," Trump said. "I hate my opponent, and I don;t want the best for them."
..... These type of comments infuriate the president's detractors, who say it further divides the country.
..... And they are especially alarming to Trump's critics on the heels of the president asking Attorney General Pam Bondi by name in a Truth Social post to seek criminal charges against high-profile critics, such as former FBI Director James Comey; Senator Adam Schiff, D-California; and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
..... The public pressure is another example some legal observes say, of Trump eroding democratic norms, specifically the U.S. Department of Justice's traditional of independence.
..... "After months of denial, it has become underivable that Donald Trump is weaponizing the government to attack his political opponents, silence his critics and neutralize large institutions that might challenge him,: Marc Elias, a longtime Democratic election attorney and founder of Democracy Docket, a life-leaning organization focused on election litigation, said in a September 22 [2025] newsletter.
..... "when we sound the alarm that he has turned the Department of Justice into his personal legal arsenal," Elias added, "We are told that he is simply shaking insight up by disregarding customs and norms."
..... Asked about Trump's frustration that the attorney general hadn't made progress on prosecuting past foes, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt scoffed at the notion the agency is being politicized, before she quickly pivoted to slamming the previous administration.
..... "We are not going to tolerate gas-lighting from anyone in the media or from anyone on the other side who is trying to say that it's the president who is weaponizing the (Department of Justice)," she said during the September 22 [2025] news briefing.
..... "It was Joe Biden and his attorney general who weaponized the DOJ," in reference to special prosecutor Jack Smith bringing charges against Trump for his role in fermenting the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot and his retention of classified documents after leaving office.

Tool of vengeance

..... Biden never directly called for trump or any other Republican opponents to be prosecuted and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland only launched the investigation into Trump after the congressional committee investigating January 6 [2021] publicly laid out evidence he may have obstructed justice in his efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral defeat.
..... During the 2024 presidential campaign, trump laid bare many of his intentions about being a tool of vengeance. he circulated Truth Social posts calling for military tribunals against former President Barack Obama, for instance.
..... The Online flogging of Bondi this month [09/2025] hearkens back to the first term where as president he regularly pressured and fired those who didn't do his bidding.
..... In 2019, for example, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions after a year of intense and public scrutiny. He later turned on Attorney General William Barr, who left the first administration after declaring there was no widespread evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, which Trump repeatedly claimed.

'Tyranny is here'

..... On September 20, [2025] the president said he "fired" Erik Siebert, the acting U.S. attorney overseeing the criminal mortgage fraud investigation into James who informed the Department of Justice that his inquiry found insufficient evidence to pursue charges.
..... "Trump's directive to AG Bondi - indict my political enemies - shows how low he's sunk and how high the danger," Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, said in a September 22 [2025] post on X. "tyranny is here, not on the horizon, if such abjectly abusive prosecutions are permitted."
..... Senator Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, has been one of he few GOP lawmakers who appears squeamish about tis direction. he said during a September 21 [2025] appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" that while he believes the Biden administration shouldn't have prosecuted Trump - which conservatives dubbed "lawfare" during the 2024 campaign - it isn't right for Trump to be overly calling for a prosecution of opponents either.
..... Supporters within the Make America Great Again movement, fueled in part by anger over Kirk's assassination, have mostly scoffed at these criticisms, however. The individuals Trump is calling out, the White House and its MAGA allies say, abused their power to keep him from returning to the presidency.
..... "The president has every right to express how he feels about these people who literally campaigned on trying to put him in jail, who literally tried to ruin his life and ruin his business" Leavitt said.
..... Comey led the investigation into alleged ties between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia - which found no collusion. He was fired by trump in May 2017.
..... Schiff one of Trump's most vocal Democratic critics, led the first impeachment effort against the president over his 2019 communication with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
..... James is suing the Trump administration over cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services and executive actions on elections that she says are unconstitutional. She secured a half-billion dollar civil fraud judgment against Trump last year, [2024] though the penalty was later thrown out by an appeals court.

..... Contributing: Kathryn Palmer and Bart Jansen, USA Today

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