Trump threatens critics with federal charges

What happened

President Trump has ramped up his retribution campaign, threatening to prosecute former ally turned critic Chris Christie just days after FBI agents searched the home and office of former national security adviser John Bolton. Federal agents raided Bolton's Washington, D.C., office and his suburban home on Aug. 22, seizing computers and documents as part of an investigation into alleged illegal sharing of classified information. Ahead of the raid, Bolton had angered Trump with public criticism of his policy toward Russia, and the president had spent days attacking him on social media. While Trump later denied foreknowledge of the FBI raid, he said Bolton deserved it because he was "a real sort of lowlife" and "unpatriotic." Undeterred, Bolton wrote an op-ed in the Washington Examiner listing numerous mistakes he said Trump had made regarding Russia that have "left us further from peace" in Ukraine.

Saying falsely that he could prosecute anyone he wanted to because he was America's "chief law enforcement officer," Trump turned his ire on other critics. After Christie denounced the raid on Bolton, Trump threatened to reopen a criminal investigation into "Bridgegate," an alleged act of political retaliation that took place when Christie was New Jersey governor. The president also said he would "have to rethink" federal funding for rebuilding Baltimore's damaged Key Bridge after Maryland Gov. Wes Moore warned him against sending troops to that city. And he announced he would fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, claiming she had committed mortgage fraud (see Best Business Columns, p.34). "This is clearly retribution," said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), himself a target of a Justice Department mortgage fraud probe. "Anyone who says anything adverse to the president's interests gets the full weight of the federal government brought down on them."

What the editorials said

"It's hard to see the raid" against Bolton "as anything other than vindictive," said The Wall Street Journal. Bolton fell from favor in Trump's first term and promptly wrote a tell-all memoir describing Trump as ignorant and unfit, which the administration tried unsuccessfully to block from publication. After regaining the presidency, "Trump made clear that he was out for blood," pulling Bolton's Secret Service detail even though Iran had plotted to murder him in retaliation for an assassination Bolton helped orchestrate at Trump's behest. It's "the kind of gratuitous viciousness" we've come to expect from this president.

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Even if the FBI finds classified documents in Bolton's possession, "the administration has damaged any presumption of good faith by flinging weightless accusations of criminality at those who challenge it," said The New York Times. That includes not just Bolton, Cook, and Schiff, but also New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is being investigated for mortgage fraud—the apparent weapon of choice for Trump's Justice Department. Trump even threatened financier George Soros and his son Alex, prominent donors to Democratic causes, with racketeering charges.

What the columnists said

The timing of events was revealing, said Benjamin Wittes in The Bulwark. "I was there" at the start of the raid on Bolton's Maryland home, and no New York Post reporter was present. Yet within minutes, FBI Director Kash Patel had posted about it on X and the Post's website had a full-length article describing the raid. Clearly, the administration had fed information to the tabloid. "Part of the point was to create a theatrical display of law enforcement power" against a prominent anti-Trumper. The message: "If you criticize Trump, the government is coming for you."

All this is ugly indeed, said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post, but it was Democrats who first abused the law in this way. James first boasted she "planned to use her office to harass" Trump on the night she was elected in 2018, well before she unearthed evidence of his wrongdoing. The resulting civil fraud trial was a shameful spectacle of "judicial and prosecutorial overreach," as evidenced by the fact that the $454 million penalty James levied on Trump was overturned last week.

Yet the lengths Trump is going to in punishing his enemies is entirely new, and frightening, said Norm Eisen at MSNBC.com. The same institutions marshaled against Bolton "can be wielded against anyone." Who is next? It could be judges who issue rulings unfavorable to the administration, lawmakers who block Trump's agenda, or "even ordinary citizens who may have written a letter or a post on social media that he objects to." It could be you.