DOJ Officials ‘Smiled, Nodded and Shuffled’

One of the many challenges of the current moment is that the depravities and depredations become so routinized and regular that they cease to be new in the news sense.

At this point, I’ve written dozens of Morning Memos that headline President Trump’s politicization and weaponization of the Justice Department. It remains the linchpin of all of Trump’s rule of law violations because without a functioning, professional, independent Justice Department, no federal laws will be reliably enforced. To anyone paying attention, this is no longer news but an established fact, a premise from which to proceed.

And yet … each week brings some new extreme — in either intensity, extent, or brazenness —that warrants documenting again the descent into authoritarianism.

Yesterday in an Oval Office event ostensibly focused on combatting violent crime, President Trump’s lawless abuse of the Justice Department was on full display in the immediate presence of the attorney general, deputy attorney general, and FBI director.

In response to a question, Trump lashed out at former DOJers who, much to his chagrin. have not yet been criminally charged as part of his campaign of retribution. Clearly annoyed by former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s most extensive public remarks to date, Trump zeroed in on the interview Smith gave to former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann last week in London:

“Deranged Jack Smith, in my opinion, is a criminal. His interviewer was Weissmann. I hope they’re going to look into Weissmann too. Weissmann’s a bad guy. And he had somebody, Lisa, who was his puppet, worked in the office really as the top person — and I think she should be looked at very strongly. There was tremendous criminal activity…They have committed massive political crime. I hope they’re looking at Shifty Schiff. I hope they’re looking at all these people. And I’m allowed to find out — I’m, in theory, the chief law enforcement officer.”

Lisa is a reference to former deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, the No. 2 during the Biden administration. Trump has already demanded that Microsoft fire her from a senior position with the company. The video of Trump’s screed:

Trump on Biden and Jack Smith: "I think it was the worst weaponization of a political opponent in the history of the world … Deranged Jack Smith in my opinion is a criminal. I hope they're gonna look into Weissmann too … Lisa Monaco should be looked at very strongly."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-10-15T20:18:16.655Z

Trump has said these things before, but the setting and the presence of the three most significant DOJ officials is the clearest, most unmistakeable sign we have yet that the Justice Department is being run out of the White House. “They smiled, nodded and shuffled in place as he spoke,” the NYT reports.

Even if Trump veils his remarks ever so slightly by couching them in terms of what he “hopes” the three officials standing next to him will do, we know better that to treat that as any more than window-dressing.

Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche, and Kash Patel may be fools but they’re not foolish. They know their marching orders, whether they’re given with a sly wink in public, or in private direct messages mistakenly posted publicly, or barked directly in closed Oval Office meetings. Their muted acquiescence in Trump’s Oval Office set-piece shows the center of gravity in their world is no longer Main Justice but the White House.

The retribution campaign is in full swing with the indictments of Jim Comey and Letitia James. No one is safe from a weaponized Justice Department or, as it turns out, a weaponized IRS.

Trump Moves to Weaponize the IRS

Anyone who endured the many months of manufactured Republican outrage over the IRS supposedly (but not actually) targeting conservative groups during the Obama administration can be forgiven for pulling their hair out as the Trump administration moves to make it easier for the IRS to target liberal groups.

Senior IRS official Gary Shapley is already compiling a list of “potential targets that includes major Democratic donors,” the WSJ reports:

The undertaking aims to install allies of President Trump at the IRS criminal-investigative division, or IRS-CI, to exert firmer control over the unit and weaken the involvement of IRS lawyers in criminal investigations, officials said. The proposed changes could open the door to politically motivated probes and are being driven by Gary Shapley, an adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Shapley was the longtime IRS criminal investigator who became a darling of the MAGA right for purportedly blowing the whistle on what he claimed was the slow-rolling of the Hunter Biden investigation. In the Trump II presidency, Shapley has been promoted to a more senior role.

Shapley also wants to make changes to the IRS’ criminal investigative processes that would reduce the role of the IRS chief counsel’s office, the WSJ reports.

Quote of the Day

“Charlie’s death is like a domestic 9/11. Just as after 9/11, and Osama bin Laden, the ultimate culprit, was captured, we are operationalizing the Treasury, and we are going to track down who is responsible for this.”–Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, invoking the assassination of Charlie Kirk to launch a War on Terror-style campaign against progressive nonprofit groups

It Was Good Knowing Ya, Voting Right Act

A grim day at the Supreme Court where the Roberts majority is poised to further weaken — though maybe not outright scuttle — what remains of the Voting Rights Act, a seminal piece of Civil Rights-era legislations.

Thread of the Day

If you read the precedents Abrego Garcia is citing in seeking release from detention, you begin to realize the unreported horrors Trump's DHS/ICE is quietly committing throughout the country. Take Zavvar v Scott, for instance. … 1/7 law.justia.com/cases/federa…

— Roger Parloff (@rparloff.bsky.social) 2025-10-15T13:27:39.427Z

Trump’s Caribbean Jingoism Takes a Darker Turn

Major new developments in Trump’s brewing Latin American misadventure:

• CNN: At least one of the five U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean targeted Colombian nationals on a boat that had left from Colombia.
• NYT: Trump has issued a presidential finding authorizing the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela, including lethal operations, and in the Caribbean.
• WaPo: Trump confirms that he authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela.

Pentagon Reporters Walk Out En Masse

Journalists covering the Pentagon surrendered their credentials and walked out as a group yesterday rather than sign a new restrictive Pentagon media policy.

Swastika Spotted on GOP Hill Aide’s Zoom Call

An aide to Rep. Dave Taylor (R-OH) appeared on a Zoom call with a small American flag altered to show a swastika pinned up behind him:

EXCLUSIVE: Capitol Police are investigating a swastika found in GOP Rep. Dave Taylor’s office.“The content of that image does not reflect the values or standards of this office, my staff, or myself, and I condemn it in the strongest terms," Taylor said in a statement.

— Politico (@politico.com) 2025-10-15T18:59:35.939Z

It’s not clear what or why Capitol Police are investigating, but a spokesperson for Taylor (who denounced the swastika ) called the incident “vile vandalism.”

Stay tuned …

The Corruption: Ballroom Edition

President Trump last night hosted a dinner at the White House for donors to his gaudy White House ballroom project. The WSJ published the list of expected attendees.

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The Retribution: Russia Probe Edition

The NYT had previously hinted at the reason behind the abrupt August resignation of former Virginia Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert as interim U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, but now the newspaper has compiled a fuller accounting of what happened.

Gilbert was forced to resign or be fired, the NYT reports, for refusing to can the top career prosecutor in his office, who had found insufficient evidence to pursue a cockamamie theory for investigating the investigators of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

The flimsy allegation is that the investigators themselves mishandled classified documents. FBI Director Kash Patel and deputy director Dan Bongino have seized on burn bags at FBI headquarters that contained classified documents from the case as evidence that senior officials were destroying documents to cover up or protect the former investigators. The more benign and plausible explanation — that the classified materials remain stored in digital form on FBI servers and destroying paper copies is a routine security measure — has been disregarded in favor of elaborate conspiracies that salve President Trump.

The case landed in Gilbert’s office ostensibly because his district includes a FBI classified document storage facility, but that appears to be at least in part a pretext for finding a more favorable jury pool outside of DC or Northern Virginia.

Gilbert was ordered by DOJ higher-ups to open an investigation into the matter shortly after taking over the post, but he “told his superiors that he did not believe there was sufficient evidence to justify a grand jury investigation,” the NYT reports.

From there things “quickly escalated,” as Gilbert put it in a memorable social media post of a meme from Will Farrell’s Anchorman:

Frustrated by that answer, aides to Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, blamed a senior career attorney in the office who they believed had swayed Mr. Gilbert: Zachary Lee, a veteran prosecutor with more than two decades of experience involving public corruption and narcotics, among other issues.

Justice Department officials ordered Mr. Gilbert to replace Mr. Lee with Robert Tracci as his deputy, these people said. After Mr. Lee was demoted, senior department officials suspected Mr. Gilbert was still primarily consulting Mr. Lee, whom they came to view as a holdover from the Biden administration, though he had been hired during the George W. Bush administration and promoted during the first Trump administration, these people added. At one point, Mr. Blanche spoke directly to Mr. Gilbert and offered him more resources to pursue the case, according to one person familiar with the events.

When Gilbert still didn’t bend, he was told he’d be fired, at which point he resigned.

Tracci is now the acting U.S. attorney, and Lee has left the office, according to the NYT.

The new revelations about Gilbert’s surprisingly stiff spine — he’s a longtime GOP politician who has walked the party line, to say the least, for years — is another striking example of the weaponization of the Justice Department. It’s an especially remarkable incident because Gilbert had been nominated for the permanent position, but resisted going along to get along and was forced out after just a month on the job.

The Retribution: Jack Smith Edition

House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan on Tuesday sent a letter to former Special Counsel Jack Smith seeking his to testimony. Jordan is seizing on yet another conspiratorial pretext for investigating the investigators: The GOP-driven news that Smith obtained phone records of the calls of some GOP lawmakers around Jan. 6, 2021 as part of his investigation into the failed coup attempt.

Jordan’s move came the same day that video of some of Smith’s first public remarks about his work in the Jan. 6 and Mar-a-Lago investigations — in an interview last week in London with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann — were widely disseminated.

The Worst of the Worst: ‘I Love Hitler’

Politico has the receipts from a Telegram group chat among leaders of the Young Republicans group who exchanged racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic private messages with abandon between early January and mid-August of this year.

US Revokes Visas Over Charlie Kirk Comments

On the same day President Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to Charlie Kirk at the White House, the State Department announced it had revoked the visas of six people who had posted anti-Kirk screeds on social media.

US Lawlessly Attacks 5th Caribbean Boat

President Trump announced on social media another U.S. strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat off of Venezuela, claiming the strike killed six men. Trump provided no evidence for the allegations that it was a drug-smuggling boat and very little other information about the attack. The administration continues to provide next to no legal rationale for the unprecedented series of attacks.

“Since Mr. Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, started the operation last month, a broad range of legal specialists have called the premeditated and summary extrajudicial killings illegal,” the NYT’s Charlie Savage notes. “They noted that the military cannot lawfully target civilians — even criminal suspects — who do not pose a threat in the moment and are not directly participating in hostilities.”

In related news, CNN reports on how the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has sidelined the lawyers at the Pentagon, including by applying political litmus tests to top JAG leaders, while pushing the legal limits of military action:

One recent flashpoint for the role of US military lawyers has been the series of strikes on boats in the Caribbean, with multiple current and former JAGs telling CNN that the strikes do not appear lawful. Lawyers specializing in international law within DoD’s Office of General Counsel have also raised concerns about the legality of the strikes, sources familiar with the matter said.

Responding in a statement to CNN, the Pentagon spokesperson threw down a gauntlet (emphasis mine):

The War Department categorically denies that any Pentagon lawyers with knowledge of these operations have raised concerns regarding the legality of the strikes conducted thus far because they are aware we are on firm legal ground. … “No lawyer involved has questioned the legality of the Caribbean strikes and instead advised subordinate commanders and Secretary Hegseth that the proposed actions were permissible before they commenced. 

Your occasional reminder that the strikes on alleged drug cartel boats combined with the increased deployment of U.S. military assets to the region seem largely designed as a saber-rattling exercise against Venezuela.

‘Strap Up Cowboy’: A Major Scandal in Any Other Era

A state judge in Florida issued a restraining order against Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) barring him from coming within 500 feet of his former girlfriend, a state GOP committee woman who is also the reigning Miss United States. The judge in his ruling called her “a victim of dating violence.”

Lindsey Langston ended the relationship earlier this year after the married Mills was linked to the alleged assault of a third woman in Washington, D.C. Mills allegedly continued to contact her after the breakup and threatened to blackmail her with nude photos, NBC News reports:

Mills is alleged to have sent a series of harassing communications to Langston in May and June, which are cited in the judgment, including a message he wrote to Langston on May 15 that she “may want to tell every guy you date that if we run into each other at any point. Strap up cowboy[.]”

Mill did not comment on that latest developments.

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