Trump Takes His Corrupt Retribution Against The Justice Department

INSIDE: Jack Smith ... Stewart Rhodes ... Pete Hegseth
US President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House on January 27, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump returns to Washington after visits to disaster sites in North Carolina and Califo... US President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he walks on the South Lawn of the White House on January 27, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump returns to Washington after visits to disaster sites in North Carolina and California, and spending the weekend in Florida. (Photo by Kent Nishimura / AFP) (Photo by KENT NISHIMURA/AFP via Getty Images) MORE LESS
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🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨FIVE ALARM FIRE🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨

President Trump’s corrupt retribution against the Justice Department is now fully underway, with a series of moves over the past 24 hours that in any other era would be the defining political and legal story of the age. Today, it didn’t even make the front page of the New York Times.

  • Trump’s acting attorney general sacked the career prosecutors who worked on the Trump prosecutions. Among those let go were Molly Gaston, J.P. Cooney, Anne McNamara, and Mary Dohrmann, NBC News reported.
  • Trump’s acting U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., a political lackey from Missouri, launched an investigation of the prosecutors who brought the criminal charges against hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters.
  • DOJ’s most senior career official was sidelined by being moved to a department backwater. Separately, the DOJ official who oversaw the prosecution of public corruption, who had previously been reassigned to the same backwater, resigned rather than continue in a reduced role.

The corrupt wholesale cashiering of career prosecutors who worked on the Mar-a-Lago and Jan. 6 cases against Trump was the most egregious of the corrupt acts, in defiant violation of the civil service rules and the rule of law. But the most absurd development was acting U.S. Attorney Ed Martin’s purported investigation into why DOJ had pursued obstruction charges against Jan. 6 rioters. While the Roberts Court ultimately cut prosecutors legs out from under them, the obstruction charge was ratified by multiple federal trial judges and the DC Circuit before the Supreme Court held otherwise.

If you were taking a measured approach to see how things played out once Trump took office, the waiting is over. It’s a five-alarm fire at the Justice Department. Ousting independent career prosecutors is just Step 1, a prelude to Step 2, which is using the Justice Department to protect Trump and his administration from accountability for their wrongdoing. Step 3 turns DOJ into a weapon against anyone who Trump perceives as less than fully loyal and obedient.

The retribution is being exacted precisely as promised. As Joyce Vance put it: “The real witch hunt is here.”

Jack Smith Lawyers Up

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith has retained private counsel: Peter Koski of Covington & Burling.

Stewart Rhodes Is Free To Roam The Capitol

A federal judge in DC lifted an earlier order barring Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes from coming to DC or visiting the Capitol with prior court approval, agreeing with the Justice Department that Trump’s commutation of Rhodes canceled any post-sentence supervision.

Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Killed In Police Shooting

“An Indiana man who was recently pardoned for his participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was shot and killed during a traffic stop by a sheriff’s deputy Sunday.”–NBC News

Quote Of The Day

“This raises an existential threat with respect to the primary independent oversight function in the federal government. We have preserved the independence of inspectors general by making them not swing with every change in political party.”–Mark Greenblatt, the Trump-appointed inspector general for the Interior Department, on the Friday night purge of inspectors general across government, including himself

Destruction Watch

  • OMB: White House pauses on all federal grants, loans and other financial-assistance programs pending further review. That last part is key: Trump is using the paralyzing freezes of various government operations to take extra-legal control of the decision-making over what is spent and how it is spent.
  • USAID: “The Trump administration has cleared out much of the leadership of the U.S. Agency for International Development, placing dozens of career officials on administrative leave Monday after accusing the agency of trying to ‘circumvent’ President Donald Trump’s executive order freezing all foreign aid, U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.”–WaPo
  • OPM: Schedule F is back with a vengeance.

Pointless Waste And Destruction

“The Trump administration has instructed organizations in other countries to stop disbursing H.I.V. medications purchased with U.S. aid, even if the drugs have already been obtained and are sitting in local clinics.”–NYT (emphasis added)

Sorry, It’s Time To Learn About The Impoundment Act

Let me get you started with Steve Vladeck’s latest: The Impoundment Crisis of 2025.

U.S. Gov’t Used To Perpetuate The Othering

  • Transgender Americans: In a new executive order, President Trump used demeaning fundamentalist Christian-inflected language that portends a purge of transgender people from the military:

Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.  Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.  A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member. 

  • Black Americans: The Trump administration has barred the State Department from commemorating Black history month.
  • Non-Confederate Americans: As he arrived at the Pentagon for his first business day on the job as defense secretary, Pete Hegseth want out of his way to revert to using the former name for the Army base in North Carolina:

Pure Chicken Shit

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) assured Pete Hegseth’s ex-sister-in-law that if she came forward with her damaging testimony against him it could convince senators to oppose his nomination, the WSJ reports. She came forward and then Tillis cast the deciding vote to confirm Hegseth.

They Know What It Meant

TOPSHOT – Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gestures as he speaks during the inaugural parade inside Capitol One Arena, in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Elon Musk’s “My heart goes out to you” takes off as ironic far-right catchphrase.

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  1. Go Big Stroke!

    And please remove that ugly face; it serves no useful purpose.

  2. in any other era would be the defining political and legal story of the age. Today, it didn’t even make the front page of the New York Times.

    Well, to be fair, it is the New York Times.

  3. Avatar for Zemod Zemod says:
  4. This may not be completely spot-on, but it’s spot-on enough.

    Go ahead and watch it, it’s only a minute or two.
    His point about science and technology (that our world is dominated by it, set up around it, but almost nobody understands it) holds true for politics, govt., and media as well. Our huge problem (and it is global) is that most people don’t understand, don’t care, or are snowed under by too much of everything to be able to focus on what is essential to know.

    A good example is fighter pilots. Even they, the sharpest and most capable people who passed crucible tests and can handle enormous challenges under the highest pressures…reached a point where there was too much for them to cope. As aviation and tech progressed, there came a point where a very skilled person who used to be able to handle all the requirements was unable to do so, as more and more got piled onto their plates.

    Then, it had to be passed on to computers and other aids…so they could concentrate on the human-only tasks.

    ETA: Blaming people for being racist or fascist or stupid is a little too easy. People don’t just have their tribe, or the herd, or the crops, or a judgment on what is fair and equitable to manage anymore (and those have always been fraught and often intractable problems, even in a much simpler world). Now, huge issues with vast powers of immortal wealth, corporate predation, and air, and water, and climate, and overpopulation are pressing down on people who have no hope of combating or coping.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

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