Trump moves even closer to indicting his enemies—first stop, Comey

The pace at which President Donald Trump is committing impeachable offenses is quickening.

On Wednesday, multiple media organizations reported that Trump's new U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia is planning to seek an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey—even though the Department of Justice does not believe probable cause exists to charge Comey with a crime.

The news comes days after Trump already fired the former U.S. attorney for the EDVA, Erik Siebert, because Siebert wouldn't heed Trump's demand to charge his enemies with crimes.

That’s an impeachable offense in and of itself. But now, Trump's replacement is actually following Dear Leader's orders and will seek charges against people Trump has vowed to get retribution against. It's a terrifying and stomach-churning instance of lawfare that should get Trump impeached and removed from office, but won't because Republicans are cowards who excuse Trump no matter how deplorable his actions.

Interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan

MSNBC, which first reported the news, said interim EDVA U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan will move to charge Comey with lying to Congress. She will do that even though Halligan was told by DOJ officials that in a memo that, "there isn’t enough evidence to establish probable cause a crime was committed, let alone enough to convince a jury to convict him," according to MSNBC reporter Ken Dilanian.

Comey would be the first Trump "enemy" charged by the Trump administration.

But Trump is also demanding that Halligan indict New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff with mortgage fraud, even though there is no evidence that either committed that crime.

Halligan is reportedly gearing up to charge James—who Trump loathes because she successfully sued Trump for business fraud, with a judge finding Trump liable for inflating his net worth in order to receive more favorable loans.

Aside from using the power of the presidency to try to jail his opponents, Trump is also trying to silence dissent and speech he doesn’t like.

Trump’s Pentagon is attempting to limit what reporters can report. And Trump is trying to pressure media organizations to remove programming from the airwaves in order to avoid being hit with costly lawsuits (see Kimmel, Jimmy).

What’s more, Trump is also closing criminal investigations into his allies (see Homan, Tom), and engaging in blatant corruption by giving out pardons to people who line his pockets with crypto cash.

"The point here is to get a few of Trump's political adversaries in jail, but the real point is a tried and true tactic of despots all over the world, which is to just harass and intimidate their political opposition so that protesters don't show up, candidates don't run,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Thursday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “That's how democracies die."

Murphy: "The point is to get a few of Trump's political adversaries in jail, but the real point is a tried & true tactic of despots all over the world, which is to just harass & intimidate their political opposition so that protesters don't show up, candidates don't run. That's how democracies die." [image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) September 25, 2025 at 9:17 AM

Art is only free speech if Trump says so

In Donald Trump’s world, nothing says freedom like targeting art and museums.

In the wake of recent attacks on the Smithsonian’s choice to feature more than just straight, white artists, the White House has created a detailed list of artists it deems too woke. 

“This is ‘art’ from the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery commemorating the act of illegally crossing the ‘exclusionary’ border,” a White House X account wrote alongside a painting by Rigoberto A. Gonzalez. 

“This is what President Trump means when he says the Smithsonian is ‘OUT OF CONTROL.’”

The painting in question features a realistic depiction of a family of four at the southern border wall as a mother, holding a baby in her arms, scales a ladder.  

But the White House didn’t stop there. 

In this June 25, 2018 photo, visitors sit near a print by Mexican-American, Los Angeles-based artist Ken Gonzales-Day, who was exhibiting his 2006 series "Erased Lynchings" at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, which shows a series of photographs of lynchings in which the victim has been digitally removed from the image.

In their attempt to drive home the right-wing talking point of how crazy and woke the Smithsonian truly is, officials created an entire webpage listing out each piece of art featured at the museum at one time or another that crossed some imaginary line. 

The list, it appears, only includes artists who depict people of color or queer individuals. And predictably, the administration made it a point to bash artists who featured immigrants as well. 

“A exhibit [sic] at the American History Museum depicts migrants watching Independence Day fireworks ‘through an opening in the U.S.-Mexico border wall’ and says America’s founders ‘feared non-White immigration,’” the White House wrote. 

It seems as if the administration takes issue with the statement that the founders painted non-white immigrants in a negative light. Then again, the Trump regime labeled Venezuelan immigrants with no criminal record as dangerous gang members before throwing them into a foreign prison that’s notorious for torturing inmates.

The artwork’s description also points out how Latin American immigrants are often labeled as “invaders.” And with an administration and president insistent on calling them “illegal aliens” while making sweeping generalizations that immigrants coming from the southern border are murderers and rapists, the shoe sure does seem to fit.

Related | How is the White House erasing history this week?

But it’s not just messaging on immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community that MAGA is fuming over. 

Trump’s minions also pushed to make sure that the Smithsonian wiped any mention of the president’s two impeachments from an exhibit. Public outcry and critical media coverage resulted in the exhibit being restored—but with new, softer language describing Trump’s transgressions.

If that’s not outrageous enough, Trump has also instructed the museum to downplay slavery’s role in American history

But turn back the clock just a few years to Trump’s first term as president, and remember how his administration was pointing fingers at the left for participating in censorship and “cancel” culture.

As always, the projection is strong with Trump and company.