Retribution: Trump calls for prosecution of critics

President Trump "fired a warning shot from the edge of autocracy" last week, said Thom Hartmann in The New Republic. The U.S. moved much closer to becoming a "police state" when Trump signed executive memoranda directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate public comments made by two former officials: Christopher Krebs, a former top cybersecurity official in the first Trump administration who debunked baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security official who wrote an anonymous newspaper column and book criticizing Trump. They're "public servants whose only crime" was speaking truth to power—but a vengeful Trump now wants them prosecuted to send "a chilling message to current and future whistleblowers: 'Cross me, and you'll pay.'" Trump is no longer simply "using the justice system to reward friends" as he did when he pardoned Jan. 6 rioters this year, said Mona Charen in The Bulwark. Ominously, he has targeted individuals he views as enemies. In Krebs' case, he has ordered the Justice Department to scour his tenure in government to find some form of misconduct. In the infamous words of Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's hatchet man: "Show me the man, and I will find the crime."

Krebs and Taylor are "minor characters from Season 1 of The Trump Show," said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. So why target them? It signals there are no insignificant critics, and that if you cause this president "any trouble, you too should sleep less soundly at night. No one is safe." The ball is in Bondi's court, said Elie Honig in New York. An ethical attorney general would not proceed without "predication" of a crime, but despite assurances during her Senate confirmation hearing that she would uphold the Justice Department's independence, Bondi has shown "she's in the bag for Trump." Unlike her predecessor, Bill Barr, who "ignored Trump's public pleas" to arrest enemies, Bondi will vigorously investigate. And even if she can't bring charges or make them stick, Krebs and Taylor could face staggering legal fees, searches of their phones and computers, intrusive interviews of friends and colleagues, and damage to their careers.

Trump broke a promise by "siccing" Bondi on Krebs and Taylor, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. He "campaigned on ending lawfare" and in January signed an executive order squashing "the 'weaponization' of government." So much for that. Now he's "doing precisely what Democrats did to him." The hypocrisy doesn't end there, said Aaron Blake in The Washington Post. Trump says Taylor is "guilty of treason," accusing him of exposing classified conversations. But after his first term, Trump was indicted for "taking and resisting returning" more than 100 classified documents, and stashing them in a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago.

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The attack on Krebs and Taylor ushers in "phase two" of the second Trump presidency, said David A. Graham in The Atlantic. "Phase one" featured the Elon Musk–led purge of federal agencies. That was done in the name of cost cutting, but the Department of Government Efficiency's work also reduces the number of "long-time professionals" who might "stand in the way of" Trump's retribution mission. To advance that mission, Trump fired career Justice Department attorneys who might object to political prosecutions, and punished and neutered law firms that have represented Trump critics. Now in phase two, critics will taste his vengeance. For Trump, "revenge isn't just a welcome adjunct to controlling the levels of government." It's the whole point of his second term.