The American justice system has hardly ever been something to boast about. It is heavily tilted to serve the interests of the rich and powerful and against ordinary people, not to mention often being racist and misogynistic to boot. But with Trump, it has opened up new areas of legal malpractice, violating some of the norms that used to exist.

When Joe Biden was president, whenever any person or group on the conservative end of the spectrum was investigated for anything, rightwingers would howl in indignation that Biden had ‘weaponized the Justice Department’ to attack them, even though there was scant evidence that this was the case. In fact, Biden seemed to go to great lengths to distance himself from his attorney general Merrick Garland and Garland himself seemed to be very conscious of his duty to be independent of Biden.

All that seems so quaint now. With Trump, the weaponization of the entire US government against his perceived political enemies is going full blast. His attorney general Pam Bondi acts as if she gets her instructions directly from Trump. The firing of career people and replacing them with ideologues who will do her bidding is her way of making sure that political vendettas can be carried out. As a result, Trump keeps losing case after case because they are overstepping the bounds.

The most recent involved a judge dismissing the cases brought against former director of the FBI James Comey and current New York attorney general Letitia James.

A federal judge threw out the criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James on Monday, concluding that the prosecutor handling the cases was unlawfully appointed.

Lindsey Halligan, whom Trump named the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia in September, had “no lawful authority to present the indictment” against the former FBI director and New York attorney general, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie wrote in her opinion.

“I conclude that the attorney general’s attempt to install Ms Halligan as interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia was invalid and that Ms Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role since September 22, 2025,” Currie, who was appointed to the bench by Bill Clinton, wrote in her opinion. She added that “all actions flowing from Ms Halligan’s defective appointment” were “unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside”.
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Currie dismissed both cases “without prejudice”, which means the government could theoretically try to bring the charges again under a properly appointed US attorney. But it is unclear if they could even do that in Comey’s case because the statute of limitations for the crime he is charged with passed on 30 September 2025.

“The decision further indicates that because the indictment is void, the statute of limitations has run and there can be no further indictment,” said Patrick Fitzgerald, a lawyer for Comey. “The day when Mr Comey was indicted was a sad day for our government. Honest prosecutors were fired to clear the path for an unlawful prosecution. But today an independent judiciary vindicated our system of laws not just for Mr Comey but for all American citizens.”

You can be sure that Bondi will find ways to charge them both again.

Then we have the case involving six Democratic members of congress, all former members of the military or the intelligence community, who reminded members of the military that they do not have to carry out illegal orders. This is something that anyone knows is true and yet that did not stop Trump from screaming that it was treasonous and that they should be hanged. Bondi, being the obedient poodle that she is, immediately ordered the FBI to launch an investigation into all six. They seem to be particularly targeting senator Mark Kelly, with defense secretary Pete Hegseth also suggesting that he could be charged with insubordination.

But what goes around comes around, as the cliche goes. All those in the Trump orbit who think that they can do anything they like because he will protect them were reminded by congressman Ro Khanna that they should be very careful because at some point Democrats will take back power and they can use all the things that Trump has used, this time against all those who carried out his wishes even when they were vindictive and had little or no justification in the law. He said this in the case of the Epstein files, warning anyone who tries to hide or delete any information in the files.


Democratic congressman Ro Khanna was a major force behind the legislative campaign that led Donald Trump to back down from his opposition and sign into law a bill compelling the release of files related to the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

With the justice department now required to release the documents within 30 days, Khanna has a warning for those in the Trump administration who may find themselves pressed to withhold information: comply or face the consequences.

“Now, it’s federal law for those documents to be released, and if the justice officials don’t release it, they will be prosecuted, and they … could be prosecuted in a future administration,” Khanna told the Guardian on Wednesday evening, shortly before Trump put his signature on a bill intended to reveal the truth about what he spent weeks calling a “Democrat hoax”.

“The career officials [that] are making these decisions have to think that they’re going to be subject to future contempt of Congress or criminal prosecution, and they’re taking a huge risk … if they violate that, given that administrations change,” the California lawmaker added.

It is good to issue these warnings in order to put fear into those people so that they may think twice before taking against their perceived enemies or in support of their friends and allies. But this is also a dangerous slippery slope that the country is on. If every time the government changes, they go after all the people who had been in power before who took any actions against their own side, that would be very bad for democracy.

It will be all Trump’s fault but he will not care in the least.