October 10, 2025

Yesterday’s indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James shocked many people who should hardly be surprised. For months, I have complained that far too few people were taking Donald Trump’s threat to use the Department of Justice to prosecute his political opponents seriously. Even after this indictment, I fear too many will continue to underestimate the threat.

We are not approaching a constitutional crisis; we are in one. We are not risking authoritarianism; we are experiencing it. We are not crossing the Rubicon; that famous river is so far behind us that our shoes and clothes have completely dried during the journey.

To put it another way, James is not the first political prosecution ordered by Trump, and she will not be the last. In fact, given the serendipitous way we learned of the impending indictments of James Comey and Tish James — through a “Dear Pam” direct message that accidentally became a public social media post — I suspect there have been...