The Justice Department Is the Tip of Trump’s Retribution Spear

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

It’s Only Just Begun

The politicized prosecutions by the Trump Justice Department have only just begun. We have three more years of this. The challenge in covering them will be:

• not to treat them like normal prosecutions, especially not to get lost in the usual minutiae of criminal investigations and trials;
• not to normalize political prosecutions as an authoritarian tool even as they become routinized and repetitive;
• not to let the occasional legitimate prosecution obscure or justify the indefensible politicized ones.

With that in mind, I wanted to catch you up on some of the holiday weekend developments in the three highest profile political prosecutions.

The Retribution: Jim Comey Edition

It’s still early, but a flurry of weekend filings in the political prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey suggest prosecutors are overmatched. In pre-trial procedural matters, the judge in the case twice ruled in favor of Comey, represented by former Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

It’s no surprise: U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan has never been a prosecutor before; the career prosecutors in office case declined to bring charges against Comey; and the two line prosecutors brought from North Carolina in to handle the case don’t have any experience in high-profile national cases like this.

The Retribution: Letitia James Edition

• Halligan’s politicized indictment of Letitia James somehow amazingly caught the attorney general and deputy attorney general off guard, further evidence that DOJ is really being run by the White House.
• The James indictment does not involve the Virginia property everyone expected it to, but a separate Norfolk property.
• Halligan is “likely to bring additional charges against James,” a source told the WSJ.

The Retribution: John Bolton Edition

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton could be charged as soon as this week by the acting U.S. attorney in Maryland for allegedly improper handling of classified material:

Unlike the widespread resistance career prosecutors in Virginia have shown to Trump’s pressure campaign to charge former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, career prosecutors in Maryland consider charges against Bolton to have some factual merit, the people said.

Still, the Bolton case — originally opened in Trump I, closed under Biden, and reopened under Trump II — comes after loud and direct threats from Trump himself to seek retribution against his former adviser.

Quote of the Day

“This is no longer, the Department of Justice, it’s no longer the premier prosecuting office in America. What it is now is a capo regime who goes out and executes hits when directed by the Don to do so. That’s what it is.”–former New Jersey U.S. Attorney Chris Christie

Federal Judges Warn of ‘Judicial Crisis’

A NYT survey of federal judges found widespread dismay about the Supreme Court’s use of its emergency docket.

‘Living Hell’

WSJ: “Among the last actions by former President Joe Biden before leaving the Oval Office was commuting the death sentences of 37 convicted murderers. Hours after President Trump took over, he ordered the life sentences of these men be made, in effect, a living hell.”

‘A Fully Competent, Utterly Committed Radical Ideologue’

Thomas Zimmer, on what the NYT and so many others get wrong about Trump OMB Director Russ Vought:

Key to understanding Vought’s worldview is the idea that the constitutional order – and with it the “natural” order itself – has been destroyed: The revolution has already happened, “the Left” won. Therefore, conservatives categorically err when they try to preserve what is no more. Vought certainly sees himself in the modern conservative tradition, but he also disdains the conservative establishment for their inability to understand and act upon the radical demands of the moment. Power, Vought claims, now lies with a “permanent ruling class” of leftist elites who control all major institutions of American life and especially the “woke and weaponized” agencies of the state. In order to defeat them, conservatives must become “radical constitutionalists” – and take radical action.

2026 Ephemera

Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) announced she will enter the crowded Democratic primary to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R) next year.

Signs of the Times

• President Trump will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, to the asssasinated Charlie Kirk.
• Hell Gate: Adams Administration Quietly Renames the Tombs for Disgraced Criminal Bernard Kerik

Thread of the Day

one of the reasons they're so mad at "no kings" is that they thought they were going to get a different kind of protest. they *want* the black bloc to be out there fighting with the cops. those are the images they've been trying to generate from "go." instead–newrepublic.com/article/2016…

— Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li (@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com) 2025-10-14T11:38:43.199Z

It’s Just a Matter of When

Brian Beutler:

Donald Trump and Stephen Miller will probably get the blood in the streets they want eventually.

We don’t know when or how it will unfold, or how the public will come to perceive it. But we do know that no matter how it unfolds or is perceived, it is already their fault, and everyone who cares about the future of the country should be prepared to blame them. 

Headline of the Day

MAGA Implodes Over Kristi Noem’s “Stare Down” With Man in Chicken Suit

On Bari Weiss, the Free Press and Black Rock

Do you like Morning Memo? Let us know!