With Fear and Favor

R.I.P DOJ

“Let’s have a trial.”

Former FBI James Comey has officially been indicted by the so-called Department of Justice at the direction of Donald Trump. The DOJ has long had a tradition of resisting political pressure from the White House but that is the latest in a long line of norms and traditions that have been obliterated under the Trump regime.

The direct targeting of a career government attorney and law enforcement official simply because Donald has identified him as a personal enemy means that we are in completely new territory. This is a major escalation in Donald’s long-standing campaign of political retribution.

It should surprise nobody that Pam Bondi was willing to sell what little was left of her soul in an effort to stay on Donald’s good side. She has always proven herself to be a self-serving supplicant. It is a shock to the system, nonetheless.

Months ago, in the wake of a decision to end “a lawsuit it had brought months earlier alleging a brazen pattern of racial discrimination against a Black woman,” Chris Geidner at Law Dork writes, “DOJ will not be working to protect civil rights as we know them.” With the latest development, we can safely say that Donald’s DOJ, under the control of Pam Bondi, is no longer in the business of upholding the rule of law. Instead, this once storied institution is a rogue agency with an army of incompetent, partisan, and opportunistic true believers who will use the considerable power of the DOJ to represent the interests and whims of one person and one person only—Donald Trump.

I want to look at the timeline of Comey’s actions both before and after the 2016 election.

In July of 2016, Comey, then F.B.I. director, announced in a public statement that he was recommending the DOJ bring no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton over her handling of classified information while secretary of state. But Comey went on to describe the conduct of Clinton and her colleagues as “extremely careless,” and towards the end of his statement said, “To be clear, [not bringing charges] is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.” This left the impression, to those inclined to blieve it, that under different circumstances, or had Clinton been a different person, it might have been reasonable to bring charges after all.

This also gave Donald the opportunity during the general election campaign to claim that Comey’s failure to bring charges proved that the system was “rigged.”

Comey exacerbated the situation when, on October 28, 2016, eleven days before the election, he notified Congress that the FBI had started looking into newly discovered Clinton emails. On November 6, two days before the election, he notified Congress that the FBI had not changed its conclusion. But the damage had been done, thanks in large part to the mainstream media’s incessant, over-the-top coverage.

In March of 2017, two months after Donald took office, Comey announced that the F.B.I. was investigating whether members of his campaign had colluded with Russia to influence the election, bringing a criminal investigation to the doorstep of the White House. Things went downhill from here.

In April 2017, Donald repeatedly put pressure on Comey, demanded loyalty, and asked him to clear his name publicly in the Russia inquiry. Donald posted on twitter that Comey was, quote,

“the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!”

In May 2017, Donald fired Comey via social media.

In June 2017, Comey testified in front of Congress about the pressure Donald put on him to prove his loyalty to him and drop the investigation into his campaign’s complicity with Russian interference.

In September 2020, Senate Republicans call Comey to testify as part of their effort to undermine the Russia investigation while Donald was campaigning for re-election. Comey defended the inquiry and refused to reverse his findings.

In May of 2025, less than five months into Donald’s second term, Comey posted a photo on social media of seashells on a beach forming the numbers “86 47,” a phrase that had been used by Donald’s critics at protests.

Comey deleted the post, saying he did not know the number “86” was associated with acts of violence. But still, the Secret Service questioned him about the post. Two months later, law enforcement officers tailed his car and tracked the location of his cellphone, the kind of surveillance typically used for someone who was an active threat to a person under agency protection.

In September 2025, Donald pressured Erik Siebert, his initial pick for U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to bring charges against Comey. After Siebert refused, citing a lack of evidence, he resigned only to be replaced by senior White House aide and one of Donald’s former defense attorneys, Lindsey Halligan. Halligan has no relevant experience—she has never prosecuted a case--but she is currently in charge of over 300 career prosecutors.

Halligan immediately set about to put together the bogus charges against Comey. When asked by a plant from a right-wing media outlet whether Comey’s potentially impending indictment would “be the first step in accountability for pushing the hoax of Russia, Russia, Russia,” Donald replied:

Well, I can’t tell you what’s going to happen because I don’t know. You have very professional people headed up by the Attorney General and Todd, Todd Blanche and Lindsay Halligan, who’s a very smart, good lawyer, very good lawyer. They’re going to make a determination. I’m not making that. I think I’d be allowed to get involved if I wanted, but I don’t really choose to do so. I can only say that Comey’s a bad person. He’s a sick person. I think he’s a sick guy. Actually, he did terrible things at the FBI.”

This is the person who is now empowered to use the Department of Justice as his own tool of vengeance.

And then, yesterday at 7:00 p.m. ET, a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia handed down two indictments against Comey.

In the wake of this news, Donald posted the following on his failing social media site:

JUSTICE IN AMERICA! One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey, the former Corrupt Head of the FBI. Today he was indicted by a Grand Jury on two felony counts for various illegal and unlawful acts. He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation.

There is no justice in America. As if to underscore this, Donald posted the following this morning:

James “Dirty Cop” Comey was a destroyer of lives. He knew exactly what he was saying, and that it was a very serious and far reaching lie for which a very big price must be paid!

Donald continues his calls for indictments of some of his other perceived political enemies, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and New York Attorney General Letitia James, George Soros, and Reid Hoffman, to name a few. I have no doubt the list is long and comprehensive because, at least when it comes to slights and humiliations he’s received at others’ hands, Donald’s memory is long. And he holds grudges forever, because he is a small, empty, weak man.

I revile James Comey’s blatant interference in the 2016 election and his targeting of Hillary Clinton and her campaign. But his indictments are a travesty and a dangerous attack on a private American citizen, the independence of the DOJ, and the rule of law as we once knew it.

RIP, DOJ, indeed.