On Wednesday afternoon, we learned that President Trump’s Department of Justice has begun investigating former FBI director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan. As The New York Times reported, Trump’s Secret Service had Comey “followed by law enforcement authorities in unmarked cars and street clothes and tracked the location of his cellphone the day after he posted an image on social media in May that President Trump’s allies said amounted to a threat to assassinate the president.”
I can’t say I’m surprised. And, honestly, you shouldn’t be either.
One of the lessons Donald Trump clearly took from his first term was that the Department of Justice didn’t always do his bidding. And he very much wanted it to.
The president was often outraged that his first Attorney General—Jeff Sessions—was investigating anything that Trump hadn’t specifically asked him to look into.
Here’s Trump in 2018 complaining about Sessions not doing his bidding:
Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2018
It went on like that for a while, until Trump got rid of Sessions the day after the 2018 midterms.
Trump replaced Sessions with Bill Barr—someone who, presumably, he thought would be more willing to follow orders. That didn’t work out either, though, as Barr later said that he had found no evidence of widespread election fraud in the 2020 vote (even as Trump was insisting he had been cheated out of the election).
“So nice to see that Sloppy, Low Energy RINO Bill Barr, gets loudly booed and shouted at everywhere he goes! He is sooo bad for America,” Trump posted on Truth Social in 2023.
And just in case you still hadn’t figured out how Trump wanted to use the DOJ as his own personal legal strike force in his second term, remember that he nominated former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as his first pick to serve as AG.
Gaetz’s primary skill? Loyalty to Trump! Which is the trait that Trump prizes most.
When Gaetz proved unpalatable to, well, almost everyone, Trump turned to Pam Bondi, another—stop me if you’ve heard this before—loyalist.
Bondi was, naturally, asked in her confirmation hearings whether she would let partisan politics affect her role at DOJ. “Politics has to be taken out of this system,” she said in response. “This department has been weaponized for years and years and years, and it has to stop.”
Trump, unable to help himself, had soon basically contradicted Bondi publicly.
“I know I’m supposed to say she’s going to be totally impartial with respect to Democrats, and I think she will be as impartial as a person can be. I’m not sure if there’s a possibility of totally, but she’s going to be as total as you can get,” Trump said in February. “But she’s going to be fair.”
Gaslighting, anyone?
So if you are surprised that the Bondi-led DOJ is now investigating Brennan for allegations of lying to Congress and Comey for the FBI’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, you haven’t been paying attention.
This is why I believe Trump wanted to be president again. Or it’s at least a very big part of he wanted to be president again: So he could correct what he saw as the errors made at the DOJ during his first term, capitalize on the missed opportunities and use the agency to reward his friends and vanquish his enemies. Or at least make things very, very uncomfortable for them.
This is exactly what he is doing to Brennan and Comey. My guess is they are just the leading edge of a broader campaign targeting political enemies to come. Remember: Trump will be president for another 43 months.
Want more ball and strike calling—no matter what uniform the batter at the plate is wearing? Check out Chris Cillizza’s Substack and YouTube channel.
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