Donald Trump’s enemies list keeps growing

President Donald Trump has engaged in many televised rants since he entered politics. In fact, most of his appearances could be classified as such. But one of the most stunning he’s ever given came in his Nov. 2 “60 Minutes” interview with Norah O’Donnell. Trump spoke in his usual stream of consciousness style, but there was one extended riff that was substantially cut in the televised version and was only evident to those who read the full transcript published by CBS or watched the full interview that Trump eventually posted online. Fittingly, it focused on retribution against his enemies. 

O’Donnell barely got a word in edgewise as she tried to pin him down on one simple question: Did he order the criminal investigations into former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former National Security Adviser John Bolton? 

After minutes of obfuscation, Trump answered that he hadn’t ordered them to be investigated because their guilt was so obvious to the “honest people” he has working for him — a lie which was gently fact-checked by “60 Minutes” by showing Trump’s apparently accidental Truth Social Post telling Attorney General Pam Bondi it was time to make a move. Within days, the Department of Justice indicted Comey. James and Bolton soon followed. 

Comey, of course, famously opened the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, James won a major lawsuit against Trump for business fraud and Bolton is a harsh critic of Trump’s intelligence and abilities as president. 

In the interview Trump railed against all three, repeatedly calling Comey a “dirty cop” and James a “dishonest person,” while suggesting that Bolton is crazy. The president brought up his two impeachments, referring to Democrats as “scum,” and recounted a bizarre story about Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi finding out that his infamous call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had been taped. “She said, ‘You made me go into this mess,’” Trump claimed. “She screamed at all these people that made her do it, bad people like Schiff, et cetera, et cetera. So what happened is, she went nuts and just to conclude, and they said, ‘Let’s do it anyway.’”

In fact, Pelosi actually resisted impeaching Trump until the transcript emerged. (There was no tape of the call.) She told an interviewer that, at that point, “what the President did vis-a-vis the President of Ukraine just removed all doubt that we had to act.” 

Trump sounded like a Mafia don throughout this part of the interview, even saying that he “beat the rap.” The entire change was chilling, and it’s both unfortunate and telling that CBS News — now under the leadership of Bari Weiss, who is notorious for promoting right-wing views — did not air that entire exchange. 

From the moment he announced his third presidential bid, Trump made it clear he was bent on revenge. His intentions were never secret. In fact, he famously proclaimed “I am your retribution” to ecstatic crowds throughout the 2024 campaign — and he meant it. 

Notably, though, the cases brought by his Justice Department against Comey, James and Bolton do not involve the so-called crimes Trump has repeatedly named, such as filing false changes, making up evidence and tampering with witnesses. If they are such corrupt, dishonest officials, one would have thought the department would have followed Trump’s specifications to the letter. Instead, Comey and James were indicted on picayune charges that appear to have little merit, and Bolton was charged with the crime for which Trump himself was investigated. 

Last week, MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian reported that the department is actively investigating another of Trump’s designated enemies, former CIA Director John Brennan, over the 2017 Russia probe in 2017 — which was already investigated by John Durham, a special counsel appointed in 2020 by Trump’s own Attorney General Bill Barr. (Durham found no wrongdoing.) Another target is Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has been in Trump’s crosshairs since his first impeachment, in which Schiff served as a House manager. The senator is reportedly being investigated for mortgage fraud, but the prosecutors can’t find enough evidence to indict.

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The Comey case looks to be in real trouble. The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District in Virginia resigned in protest over the pressure to indict Comey without evidence, followed by others who were either fired or resigned. Last week the judge in the case admonished the acting U.S Attorney Lindsey Halligan — who happens to be one of Trump’s former personal lawyers — in what was apparently a train wreck of a procedural hearing. The government, according to the judge, appeared to be “indicting first, investigating later,” a damning assessment.

The case involving James is a similar mess, as Halligan has fumbled about with a couple of inexperienced prosecutors brought in to replace other attorneys who were fired or resigned because they believed the case was without merit. Last week, James requested the case be dismissed on the basis of vindictive prosecution. 

Bondi, though, remains determined to follow the president’s orders for revenge. 

All of this is taking place as the Justice Department is purging all lawyers and FBI agents they see as enemies of Trump. Dozens of experienced prosecutors and investigators are gone, leaving the department a hollowed out shell of its former self. “The cumulative damage done to the once-respected Justice Department is so profound that it may not regain any semblance of its former self in our lifetimes, warn career law enforcement officials,” investigative journalist Carol Leonning wrote in an Oct. 30 guest essay for the New York Times. “It’s impossible to discount as hyperbole the alarm that these longtime civil servants are sounding from inside the house.”

Leonnig is the author, with Aaron C. Davis, of “Injustice: How Politics and Fear Vanquished America’s Justice Department,” which reveals that Trump was “destabilizing the institution’s foundations — and weakening its resolve with his brand of bare-knuckle attacks” throughout his first term. During the Biden administration, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s gentlemanly leadership, which aimed to restore all the genteel norms and rules of the pre-Trump era, resulted in delaying necessary investigations, empowering Trump’s comeback and laying the groundwork for his ability to “beat the rap” and his campaign of retribution.

The president’s enemies list grows every day. Speaking at a Federalist Society event last Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — another of Trump’s former personal attorneys — urged young conservative lawyers to sign up for the administration’s “war” against “rogue activist judges” who are “more political, or certainly as political, as the most liberal governor” or district attorney. Evidently, the administration would now like the purge to extend to the courts. 

Donald Trump has always sought vengeance; it’s fundamental to his warped worldview. He always believed the Justice Department should be his own personal law firm engaged in helping him do it. He’s now gotten his wish.