The indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, whom Donald Trump considers his nemesis, has already raised eyebrows in Washington and caused knots in the stomachs of many of the president's rivals. Now, this Thursday's indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the prosecution in which the Trump clan was convicted of tax fraud, has been the confirmation of the speed with which the magnate has converted the Department of Justice into his own machine to settle scores.
The thirst for revenge had always been there. Not only as a general vendetta against a diffuse “deep state” that Trump used to harangue his followers and present himself as an anti-establishment candidate, but also as a personal vendetta with names and surnames. The president spent the entire election campaign asking for prison for his former electoral rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, or the now former president Joe Biden and his entire family. Everyone was aware that there was a blacklist and that when Trump sat in the Oval Office, he would start crossing off names. Comey and James are the first.
The accusation against James It comes less than a month after Trump publicly urged the Justice Department to go after the attorney general, who is accused of violating a mortgage contract for a Virginia home she bought in 2020 by using it as a rental property. Just five days before charges were filed against James, the mogul called her “corrupt” and “scum” on Truth Social and said she should be removed from the New York attorney general's office.
The indictment includes one count of bank fraud and another of false statements to financial institutions. Because of this, the prosecution highlights how James received favorable conditions that would have allowed him to save about $18,933 in making the bank loan.
It goes without saying how unusual it is for a federal case to have been opened for such a small sum of money, even if there was even the slightest suspicion of possible influence peddling. The charges against James are the latest reminder of how Trump has managed to purge the entire Department of Justice, firing all those officials with a long judicial career to place loyalists within the institution willing to strictly carry out his wishes. Not even Richard Nixon dared to do so in the midst of the Watergate scandal.
Before the indictment of charges against Comey and James, Trump had already dismissed the federal prosecutor who handled both files for not having been able to find a credible accusation with which to put two of the adversaries he most detests in the dock. This was only possible after Trump publicly scolded Attorney General Pam Bondi and appointed a new lawyer for the cases: Lindsey Halligan, special assistant to the president and former member of his personal legal team. Halligan has zero experience as a prosecutor and has spent much of her career as an insurance attorney. Even so, in a matter of days we have already seen how Bondi has managed to deliver the heads of Comey and James to the president on a silver platter.
It remains to be seen how the case will be resolved in court, as Trump's public demands to charge both James and Comey call into question the credibility of the charges. In any case, Trump's audacity to so blatantly touch the Department of Justice shows how far he is willing to go in his thirst for revenge.
Trump, who during the four criminal cases he had open accused the Biden Administration and the Democrats of instrumentalizing Justice against him, is now doing the same. “I was charged five times, it turned out to be a fraudulent deal, and we have to act quickly, one way or another,” Trump told reporters when asked about his statements against Comey and James. “If they're not guilty, there's no problem. If they're guilty, or if they should be charged, they should be charged.”
Other people who already feel Trump's breath on the back of their necks are his former advisor John Bolton and California Democratic Senator Adam B. Schiff. At the end of summer, Bolton was surprised at his home in Bethesda, outside Washington, by an FBI raid. The former national security advisor who served Trump during his first term has seen how the current Administration has rescued a case closed in 2020 for allegedly leaking sensitive and classified information to the press.
The magnate, who dismissed him due to heated discussions about foreign policy, holds a grudge against Bolton, who since leaving the White House has harshly criticized the Republican.
For his part, Schiff is also being investigated for charges similar to those of James: he has accused him of mortgage fraud. Trump does not forget that the Californian senator was one of the first congressmen who in 2019 helped carry out the first impeachment against him.