Team Retribution

😬Trump has his own personal DOJ on retainer...

UPDATE: While I was writing this post, James Comey was indicted.

Well, our autocracy is not subtle.

We don’t have to spend precious time reading any tea leaves wondering what Trump’s intentions are — he is doing exactly what he campaigned on.

Erik Siebert, who Trump picked to be U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia just five months ago, is a career prosecutor who said there isn’t enough evidence to go after New York attorney general Leticia James and the former head of the FBI, James Comey.

Trump did not like that, railed against Siebert publicly, which caused the prosecutor to resign, which led to Trump posting, “he didn’t quit! I fired him!”

So now, the sole purpose of the DOJ is to exact revenge on people Trump considers his enemies.

In case it wasn’t already obvious, the United States Department of [sic] Justice is firmly under Trump’s control and all semblance of independence is gone.

While Trump’s very Fox News-worthy replacement, Lindsey Halligan (who has never prosecuted a case but did place third runner-up Miss Colorado pageant in 2010!) goes after James and Comey, Attorney General Pam Bondi will enact more retribution on right-wing targets like George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

Even though it’s too easy to criticize the qualifications of Trump’s legal minds, we are in very dangerous territory.

As Ruth Marcus of the New Yorker puts it . . .

“In another era, of stiffer spines and greater integrity, we would be in Saturday Night Massacre territory.”

This is a big deal.

The President of the United States is removing career prosecutors for not doing his bidding and and in one case replacing them with . . . his former criminal-defense lawyer.

You know, the one who more recently was in charge of removing “improper ideology” from museums.

This is not normal. This is not normal. This is not normal. This is not normal.

It is so hard to keep up with all the madness going on, from, Pete Hegseth’s mysterious meeting with top Pentagon brass to a looming federal shutdown to Trump’s attempts to take over the Federal Reserve. (Oh, and blatant racism in the Oval Office.)

And that’s just from today’s headlines.

Pace yourselves, friends, we’ve got to be in this for the long haul.

-Mark