It isn’t really news that Donald Trump tried to “weaponize” the federal government against his political enemies. After all, he did it right out in the open many, many times. Here’s just one example from October of 2020, before the election:
Donald Trump mounted an overnight Twitter blitz demanding to jail his political enemies and call out allies he says are failing to arrest his rivals swiftly enough.
Trump twice amplified supporters’ criticisms of Attorney General William Barr, including one featuring a meme calling on him to “arrest somebody!” He wondered aloud why his rivals, like President Barack Obama, Democratic nominee Joe Biden and former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton hadn’t been imprisoned for launching a “coup” against his administration.
“Where are all of the arrests?” Trump said, after several dozen tweets on the subject over the past 24 hours. “Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? Long term sentences would have started two years ago. Shameful!”
How about this?
“Billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!”
During an impromptu press conference at the White House on Thursday, President Trump was asked by a reporter to be a bit more specific with one of the pejorative claims he’s been making in recent weeks.
“Sir,” NBC’s Peter Alexander said, “the Constitution says treason is punishable by death.”
Trump gave a slight nod of acknowledgment.
“You’ve accused your adversaries of treason,” Alexander continued. “Who specifically are you accusing of treason?”
“Well,” Trump replied, “I think a number of people. And I think what you look is that they have unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person.”
Who specifically?
“If you look at [former FBI director James] Comey,” Trump said, “if you look at [former FBI deputy director Andrew] McCabe, if you look at people probably higher than that.”
“If you look at Strzok, if you look at his lover Lisa Page, his wonderful lover. The two lovers,” Trump said. Here he’s referring to the two FBI employees who exchanged text messages disparaging Trump, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
Page and Strzok have sued the government for violating their privacy rights and that lawsuit is providing some sworn testimony that Trump also wanted to “weaponize” the government against his enemies in private.
John F. Kelly, who served as former President Donald J. Trump’s second White House chief of staff, said in a sworn statement that Mr. Trump had discussed having the Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies investigate two F.B.I. officials involved in the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.
Mr. Kelly said that his recollection of Mr. Trump’s comments to him was based on notes that he had taken at the time in 2018. Mr. Kelly provided copies of his notes to lawyers for one of the F.B.I. officials, who made the sworn statement public in a court filing.
“President Trump questioned whether investigations by the Internal Revenue Service or other federal agencies should be undertaken into Mr. Strzok and/or Ms. Page,” Mr. Kelly said in the statement. “I do not know of President Trump ordering such an investigation. It appeared, however, that he wanted to see Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page investigated.”
Mr. Kelly’s assertions were disclosed on Thursday in a statement that was filed in connection with lawsuits brought by Peter Strzok, who was the lead agent in the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation, and Lisa Page, a former lawyer in the bureau, against the Justice Department for violating their privacy rights when the Trump administration made public text messages between them.
The disclosures from Mr. Kelly, made under penalty of perjury, demonstrate the extent of Mr. Trump’s interest in harnessing the law enforcement and investigative powers of the federal government to target his perceived enemies. In the aftermath of Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, Congress made it illegal for a president to “directly or indirectly” order an I.R.S. investigation or audit.
The New York Times reported last July that two of Mr. Trump’s greatest perceived enemies — James B. Comey, whom he fired as F.B.I. director, and Mr. Comey’s deputy, Andrew G. McCabe — were the subject of the same type of highly unusual and invasive I.R.S. audit.
It is not known whether the I.R.S. investigated Mr. Strzok or Ms. Page. But Mr. Strzok became a subject in the investigation conducted by the special counsel John Durham into how the F.B.I. investigated Mr. Trump’s campaign. Neither Mr. Strzok nor Ms. Page was charged in connection with that investigation, which former law enforcement officials and Democrats have criticized as an effort to carry out Mr. Trump’s vendetta against the bureau. Mr. Strzok is also suing the department for wrongful termination.
Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page exchanged text messages that were critical of Mr. Trump and were later made public by Rod J. Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general under Mr. Trump, as he faced heavy criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill who were trying to find ways to undermine him.
The sworn statements from Mr. Kelly are similar to ones he made to The New York Times in November, in which he said that Mr. Trump had told him that he wanted a number of his perceived political enemies to be investigated by the I.R.S., including Mr. Comey, Mr. McCabe, Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page.kj
The IRS did audit both Comey and McCabe but claim it was just a very, very unlikely coincidence.
Trump has, as usual, projected his own corruption and criminality onto the Biden administration with all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over getting caught red-handed breaking the law. His acolytes and accomplices in the US Congress are happy to help (along with some sympathetic MAGAs in the government.)
There is a whole committee dedicated to investigation of weaponization of government. I’m going to take a wild guess that they are not going to look into any of Trump’s obvious, well-documented attempts to do it.