January 13, 2026

Donald Trump is a thug who aspires to be a dictator. It is therefore no surprise that he came to office wanting to build a loyal domestic paramilitary force. JD Vance, by contrast, is a Yale-trained lawyer who understands that police power can only take an authoritarian so far. A true strongman must control the prosecutorial state.

Trump is too dumb to grasp this nuance. Vance, however, almost certainly appreciates the power and opportunity captured in Lavrentiy Beria’s famous admonition to Stalin: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”

Already one year into his term, Trump’s thirst for vengeance against his perceived enemies is strong — so strong, in fact, that it narrows his focus. He wants to single out particular political opponents — such as Letitia James, James Comey or Jay Powell — for investigation and prosecution. He sees the criminal process itself as a means of punishing his foes.

Vance clearly wants more. He is less interested in idiosyncratic prosecutions and instead desires the capacity to investigate and prosecute entire opposition movements at scale. To achieve this objective, he needs teams of prosecutors loyal only to him and Trump, unburdened by the rules of U.S. Attorney’s Offices or Main Justice.

It was no coincidence that while Trump was fumbling around trying to target his enemies, Vance was announcing a new senior prosecutorial team modeled on the special counsel framework — but with a critical difference. According to Vance, these prosecutions will “be run out of the White House” under his and Trump’s personal “supervision.”

Whereas traditional special counsels are appointed to insulate investigations from political considerations, this structure is designed to be responsive to them. It will conduct the investigations Trump and Vance want conducted. It will indict those Trump and Vance want indicted. And it will ignore the crimes they want buried from public view.

Like traditional special counsels, this new entity will have nationwide jurisdiction and a nearly unlimited budget. In his announcement, Vance emphasized that the team will wield the broadest prosecutorial tools — most notably the highly elastic criminal fraud statutes.

As the Department of Justice manual ominously notes, “the law does not define fraud; it needs no definition.” Beria and Stalin would be proud.

According to reports, the creation of this new unit coincided with Trump’s growing disenchantment with Pam Bondi. While she has proven loyal, she is also viewed as ineffective. Her mishandling of the Epstein files is personal for Trump and represents the one scandal he has been unable to shake.

Trump likely preferred the deniability that came with an ostensibly independent attorney general. But Bondi’s failure to vindicate his false claims of election fraud in 2020 likely sealed her fate and pushed Trump toward Vance’s broader vision of a prosecutorial office run directly out of the White House.

At the press conference announcing this new arrangement, Vance was already describing investigations in the first-person plural. Referring to criminal investigations into the media, he assured assembled journalists that “our investigatory work is getting to the bottom of it.” None appeared troubled by the implication.

Vance also made clear that his role extends beyond deciding who to investigate; he will help determine who to prosecute. “If there is illegal activity related to that,” he said, “we are going to get to the bottom of it and prosecute it where we can.”

These are not the kinds of details Trump enjoys managing. He prefers plausible deniability. Like a mob boss, he would rather have others do his dirty work without his direct involvement.

Vance, however, is too much of an opportunist to appreciate Trump’s more subtle approach to abusing federal power. It is precisely this transparent opportunism that makes Vance so unlikable — and that may ultimately hamstring the project.

That does not mean it won’t cause enormous damage to individuals, civic organizations and democracy itself. Investigations take a toll. The threat of criminal prosecution will cause many to act more cautiously or withdraw altogether. Those ensnared in Vance’s Star Chamber will serve as a warning to others.

It must be made unmistakably clear from day one that everything produced by this White House-controlled prosecutorial apparatus is political. These are not good-faith law enforcement actions; they are exercises of raw power.

We must refuse to debate the supposed merits of individual investigations or indictments. Such discussions risk conferring legitimacy on an illegitimate process. We need to make clear that prosecutors who answer to the White House are simply political operatives with law degrees. Their cases deserve only exposure and defeat.

In 2023, Vance posted a video urging supporters “to grind this department to a halt until Merrick Garland promises to do his job and stop going after his political opponents.” At the time, it sounded ridiculous. Vance was widely regarded as an awkward opportunist who lucked into a Senate seat. And whatever Garland’s faults, he was neither political nor in a rush.

Today, Vance’s advice applies with grim irony. If Trump’s Justice Department is repurposed as a weapon against political enemies, it must not be normalized or accommodated. Any prosecution directed from the White House must be treated as illegitimate and fought to a standstill through every lawful means available. We cannot let Vance’s authoritarian dreams become a reality.