Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. “We are all afraid,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said this spring. “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”
We now know the lack of early activity pursuing Trump’s enemies was not by the president’s design — witness the frustration dripping from Trump’s (accidentally published) DM to AG Pam Bondi last month. Since that memo, of course, Trump’s DOJ has indicted both former FBI chief James Comey and New York AG Letitia James — with former NSA John Bolton reportedly the next Trump critic to face federal charges soon.
And Trump is going faster. Yesterday, he listed yet more targets, including former special counsel Jack Smith and former FBI counsel Andrew Weissmann (who just appeared together at an event in London); former Deputy AG Lisa Monaco; and Democratic California Sen. Adam Schiff. “I hope they’re looking at all of these people,” Trump said, standing alongside Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. “I’m, in theory, chief law enforcement officer … I don’t have to leave it up to them. But I choose to — at this moment at least.”
Trump’s team is feeling bullish, a White House official tells Dasha. “There’s no law that restricts the President of the United States from talking about accountability he wants to see,” they said. “It’s unprecedented, but it’s not illegal for him to talk about what the Department of Justice is doing.”
And so there’s more to come: Trump’s next move will be to harness the Internal Revenue Service, WSJ’s Brian Schwartz and colleagues scooped last night, with plans to pursue criminal charges against groups funding left-wing causes. “A senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that includes major Democratic donors,” the WSJ reports. This looks like weaponization going into overdrive.
