November 25, 2025

Donald Trump campaigned on revenge and retribution, and when he returned to office, he kept that promise. Already, Trump and his Department of Justice have targeted and exacted revenge on several people on the president’s list of enemies.

Unfortunately, that list is long, and the well of sycophants willing to do Trump’s bidding is deep. Unless those of us in the pro-democracy movement stay strong and resolute, the barriers against injustice will not hold.

When I started Democracy Docket in 2020, I could not have conceived how often I would be writing about the weaponization of our Justice Department. I could not have imagined how quickly we would fall into an authoritarian state where the rule of law is disregarded and mocked by those in power.

But I really never could have guessed how few would stand firm in calling out this attack on our values and Constitution. In 2020, the legacy media was still claiming it cared more about the truth than money. Its wealthy owners made a show of their commitment to their role as guardians of democracy.

Today, the corporate media’s cynical veil has been lifted. We now know that they sold us clever marketing and slogans, while their only real commitment was to their bottom line.

In Trump’s America, they dismiss those of us who speak out as naïve fools who do not understand the way business is conducted. In their telling, we are the suckers, and they are the geniuses.

That is why they can treat the indictment of Trump’s political opponents as a political story with two sides battling over politics. They can offer their viewers and readers a steady stream of experts and pundits who create disagreement and debate where there should be none.

They normalize the abnormal. They desensitize us to the painful realization that the rule of law is dying before our very eyes.

Many of you have asked me about the details of the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. You want to know about the rules and legal doctrines applicable to their cases.

Here is the most important fact: Comey and James were indicted because Trump wanted to punish his political opponents — period. He did not care what they had done, whether they were guilty or innocent, or even who brought the indictments.

In a now-famous Truth Social post, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi: “I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’”

Trump expected that Pam Bondi would “get it done” — no matter the law or the facts. He wanted Comey and James to face the consequences of opposing him, just as surely as he wanted to send a message to his other opponents.

Yesterday brought some welcome news. A federal judge dismissed the criminal indictments against Comey and James after finding that the interim prosecutor who brought the cases was not lawfully appointed. It was a good reminder that Trump is not all-powerful.

But it was also a warning of how far Trump is willing to go. The prosecutor in the case was former Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan. Halligan had no prosecutorial experience, and she was named to the position only after Trump forced out his initial pick, Erik Siebert, for refusing to go after Comey and James.

In her ruling on James’s case, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie wrote: “This case presents the unique, if not unprecedented, situation where an unconstitutionally appointed prosecutor, ‘exercising power [she] did not lawfully possess,’ … acted alone in conducting a grand jury proceeding and securing an indictment.”

While this chapter may be closed for now, the story is certainly not over. As Comey said, “I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again.”

Meanwhile, other Trump critics are facing their own baseless legal battles. As Comey and James celebrated their victory, the Pentagon launched a shameful investigation against Sen. Mark Kelly. Kelly, who found out about the investigation with the rest of us on Twitter, said, “If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work.”

Trump and his administration will not stop until he sees all his enemies and critics punished. Some of these abuses will be obvious and public. Others will be cloaked in secrecy and given a veneer of legitimacy.

The job of the media should be to call them out for what they are: The acts of an authoritarian. But in this environment, we cannot count on large corporate institutions. Instead, we must count on ourselves and on those who have proven willing to stand up to Trump.

The fight before us is hard, and it certainly comes with risks, but those risks are worth taking to save our country.