Ex-FBI Director James Comey charged with making false statement and obstruction

Posted on September 25, 2025 by Associated Press

James Comey was charged Thursday with making a false statement and obstruction in a criminal case filed days after President Donald Trump appeared to urge his attorney general to prosecute the former FBI director and other perceived political enemies.

The indictment makes Comey the first former senior government official to face prosecution in connection with one of Trump’s chief grievances: the long-concluded investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump and his supporters have long derided that investigation as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the Republican’s campaign.

The criminal case is likely to deepen concerns that the Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Trump loyalist, is being weaponized in pursuit of investigations and now prosecutions of public figures the president regards as his political enemies.

It was filed as the White House has taken steps to exert influence in unprecedented ways on the operations of the Justice Department, blurring the line between law and politics for an agency where independence in prosecutorial decision-making is a foundational principle.

Comey was fired months into Trump’s first administration and has long been a top target for Trump supporters seeking retribution. Comey was singled out by name in a Saturday social media post in which Trump complained directly to Bondi that she had not yet brought charges against him.

The following evening, Trump said in a Truth Social post aimed at the attorney general that department investigations had not resulted in prosecutions. He said he would nominate Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide, to serve as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. She has been one of Trump’s personal lawyers and does not have experience as a federal prosecutor.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote, referencing the fact that he himself had been indicted and impeached multiple times. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

The office that filed the case against Comey, the Eastern District of Virginia, was thrown into turmoil last week following the resignation of chief prosecutor Erik Siebert under pressure to bring charges against another Trump target, New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a mortgage fraud investigation.

Halligan had rushed to present the case to a grand jury this week. Prosecutors were evaluating whether Comey lied to Congress during testimony on Sept. 30, 2020, and they had until Tuesday to bring a case before the five-year statute of limitations expired. The push to move forward came even as prosecutors in the office had detailed in a memo concerns about the pursuit of an indictment.

Trump has for years railed against both a finding by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia preferred him to Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and the criminal investigation that tried to determine whether his campaign had conspired with Moscow to sway the outcome of that race. Prosecutors led by special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish that Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia, but they did find that Trump’s campaign had welcomed Moscow’s assistance.

Trump has seized on the fact that Mueller’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign and the Kremlin colluded, and that there were significant errors and omissions made by the FBI in wiretap applications, to claim vindication. A yearslong investigation into potential misconduct during the Russia investigation, was conducted by a different special counsel, John Durham. That produced three criminal cases, including against an FBI lawyer, but not against senior government officials.

The criminal case against Comey does not concern the substance of the Russia investigation. Rather, it accuses him of having lied to a Senate committee in his 2020 appearance when he said he never authorized anyone to serve as an anonymous source to a reporter about the investigation.

Mike Pence and Joseph Clancy stand near Donald Trump as he shakes hands with James Comey during a reception in the Blue Room of the White House in Jan. 2017.

Trump’s administration is trying to cast the Russia investigation as the outgrowth of an effort under Democratic President Barack Obama to overhype Moscow’s interference in the election and to undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.

Administration officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, have declassified a series of documents meant to chip away at the strength of an Obama-era intelligence assessment published in January 2017 that said Moscow had engaged in a broad campaign of interference at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Comey has for years been a prime Trump antagonist. Comey was a senior Justice Department official in Republican President George W. Bush’s administration, was picked by Obama to lead the FBI in 2013 and was director when the bureau opened the Russia investigation.

Comey’s relationship with Trump was strained from the start and was exacerbated when Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private White House dinner to pledge personal loyalty to the president. That overture so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017, an action later investigated by Mueller for potential obstruction of justice.

After being let go, Comey authorized a close friend to share with a reporter the substance of an unclassified memo that documented an Oval Office request from Trump to shut down an FBI investigation into his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Trump and his allies later branded Comey a leaker, with the president even accusing him of treason. Comey himself has called Trump “ego driven” and likened him to a mafia don.

The Justice Department, during Trump’s first term, declined to prosecute Comey over his handling of his memos. The department’s inspector general did issue a harshly critical report in 2019 that said Comey violated FBI policies, including by failing to return the documents to the FBI after he was dismissed and for sharing them with his personal lawyers without FBI permission.

Earlier this year, the department fired Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, from her job as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. She has since sued, saying the termination was carried out without any explanation and was done for political reasons.

Justice Department sues this state’s federal bench in wild new escalation

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Alex Samuels

In an unprecedented and dangerous move, the Department of Justice has sued all 15 federal judges in Maryland—a sweeping retaliation against a court order that temporarily halts deportations.

At the center of the legal firestorm is a May 21 order from Chief Judge George L. Russell III, which bans federal officials from deporting immigrants who file habeas corpus petitions in Maryland until at least 4 PM on the second business day after filing.

The goal, Russell wrote, is to prevent rushed removals that deny immigrants a fair hearing, especially after business hours or on weekends, when proper review becomes logistically impossible.

“The recent influx of habeas petitions concerning alien detainees … filed after normal court hours and on weekends and holidays has created scheduling difficulties and resulted in hurried and frustrating hearings,” the order reads.

Russell cited the All Writs Act and a 1966 Supreme Court precedent that gives courts limited power to preserve jurisdiction while they review urgent matters.

But the Trump administration isn’t backing down. In a broad legal challenge, the DOJ argues that Russell’s standing order illegally grants blanket relief to all immigrants without considering individual cases and unlawfully restricts the president’s authority to enforce immigration laws.

“A sense of frustration and a desire for greater convenience do not give Defendants license to flout the law. Nor does their status within the judicial branch,” DOJ attorneys wrote.

The DOJ is asking the 4th Circuit Court to assign a judge from outside the Maryland district to hear the case, claiming that all 15 judges have an inherent conflict of interest since they are all named as defendants.

Legal analysts say this move is without recent precedent.

“It’s extraordinary. And it’s escalating DOJ’s effort to challenge federal judges,” Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola, told The Associated Press.

Speaking to The Washington Post, J. Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge, was more blunt.

“It is reckless and irresponsible and yet another direct frontal assault on the federal courts of this country,” he said.

The legal action appears to be the latest and most extreme salvo in the Trump administration’s ongoing war with the judiciary over immigration. And it didn’t take long for Democrats to sound the alarm.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore called the suit an “unprecedented effort to intimidate judges and usurp the power of the courts” and accused the Trump administration of “turning our Constitution on its head.”

Luttig says the administration helped create the chaos initially by rushing to deport immigrants en masse without proper notice or hearings. The Supreme Court recently ruled that one such group had a right to challenge their removal before being deported.

But that hasn’t stopped Trump officials, who have continued to lash out at judges who rule against them and openly question the courts’ authority to intervene.

Attorney General Pam Bondi clarified the Trump administration’s position in a statement on Wednesday.

“President Trump’s executive authority has been undermined since the first hours of his presidency by an endless barrage of injunctions designed to halt his agenda. This pattern of judicial overreach undermines the democratic process and cannot be allowed to stand,” she wrote.

President Donald Trump has criticized adverse rulings before—at one point calling for the impeachment of a federal judge who ordered for deported immigrants to be returned to the United States. While impeachment is unlikely and would require Senate conviction, it was enough to prompt a rare public rebuke from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

“Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” he warned.

The Maryland bench, especially, has been a thorn in Trump’s side. Judges like Paula Xinis have forced the administration to reverse wrongful deportations. Others, like James K. Bredar, are overseeing lawsuits filed by Democratic state attorneys general who are challenging mass firings of federal employees.

And in a year marked by sweeping executive actions, Maryland judges have blocked key Trump policies related to immigration, transgender health care, and civil service rights. Of the 15 judges in the district, 13 were appointed by Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

But legal scholars warn that the lawsuit could break long-standing norms between the executive and judicial branches.

“The president and his attorney general will continue their ruthless attack on the federal Judiciary and the Rule of Law until the Supreme Court of the United States at least attempts to stop them,” Luttig warned. “Until now, the Supreme Court has acquiesced in the president’s war, while the devastating toll on the Federal Courts and the Rule of Law has mounted by the day.”

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Watch: Day 2 of Senate confirmation hearings for Pam Bondi

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Daily Kos Staff

The race to confirm Donald Trump’s nightmare Cabinet has entered its final stretch: Senate confirmation hearings.

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is Trump’s nominee for attorney general and returns to the hot seat Thursday as her confirmation hearing enters its second day. The ride-or-die Trump ally defended the former president during his first impeachment trial and was at the forefront of his efforts to steal the 2020 election that he lost to President Joe Biden.

Highlights from the first day of Bondi’s hearing include her lying about Trump’s well-documented attempt to pressure Georgia Secretary of State to “find 11,780 votes” to help him win the state in 2020, as well as refusing—multiple times—to admit that Trump lost to Biden in 2020.

Bondi’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee begins its second day at 10:15 AM ET Thurssday. Read her opening statement here.

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Watch: Senate confirmation hearing for Pam Bondi

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Daily Kos Staff

The race to confirm Donald Trump’s nightmare Cabinet has entered its final stretch: Senate confirmation hearings.

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, was part of Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment. The second choice for the role—after former Rep. Matt Gaetz was forced to withdraw amid multiple scandals—first made a name for herself by fighting the Affordable Care Act as the Sunshine State’s first woman AG. Bondi also was at the forefront of Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election. Bondi’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee begins at 9:30 AM ET Wednesday. Read her opening statement here.

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GOP congressman just won’t quit his war on the Bidens

Posted on December 10, 2024 by Walter Einenkel

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer just can’t stop running to Newsmax to demand endless investigations on the Biden family. Just a week ago he was on “Rob Schmitt Tonight” to complain about President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter. On Tuesday he was on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America,” trying to again stir up trouble.

Comer, whose 15-month investigation failed to reveal a shred of evidence proving President Joe Biden or his family participated in criminal activity, has been running to the less factually curious right-wing outlet to say his piece.

“The ball is now going to be in the Trump justice Cabinet’s court,” Comer told Newsmax. Despite his embarrassing failures, Comer remains insistent on accusing the Biden family of more crimes despite offering no evidence to support his allegations.

“You can go forward, there's still avenues to hold Hunter Biden accountable,” he continued. “I believe that Kash Patel and Pam Bondi are serious about reforming what we all refer to as the deep state,” Comer added.

Trump’s choices of deep state fetishist and fan-fiction writer Kash Patel to head the FBI and former corrupt government official-turned-foreign agent Pam Bondi for U.S. attorney general has given Comer a second chance at harassing GOP political opponents.

“I believe that we can use our investigation of Hunter Biden as the blueprint for how to hold these bureaucrats accountable,” Comer said in what may be his plea to the Trump administration to remain head of the Oversight Committee.

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During the House Oversight Committee investigation, the Republican lawmaker repeatedly accused Biden of doing things that it was later reported Comer himself had also done. Whether it was using pseudonyms in government correspondence, or paying his own brother under the umbrella of “loans” in land swap deals, the evidence that Comer might be involved in corrupt dealings was far more convincing than anything he dug up on Biden.

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GOP congressman runs to Newsmax with threats after Hunter Biden pardon

Posted on December 3, 2024 by Oliver Willis

As the pearl-clutching continues over President Joe Biden’s Sunday pardon of his son Hunter, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on Monday that he hopes to work with Donald Trump’s incoming Department of Justice to initiate new investigations into the Biden family and Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Appearing on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Comer was asked how Biden’s decision to pardon his son would affect his future plans.

“I look forward to talking to Attorney General Bondi about this,” the Kentucky Republican said, referencing Trump attorney general nominee Pam Bondi, who still has to be confirmed by the Senate.

Without evidence, Comer went on to allege that the Biden White House is continuing to obstruct investigations into the Biden family. Comer accused Biden, as he has multiple times over the years, of engaging in a “money laundering scheme” with “the money from our adversaries from around the world.”

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Since Republicans took control of the House after the 2022 midterm elections, Comer has focused much of the Oversight Committee’s time and resources on investigating Biden and his family. That effort even involved committee member Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene displaying photos of Hunter Biden’s genitals during a committee hearing.

Before he was ousted in October 2023, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy signed off on an impeachment inquiry into the president. But ultimately, the Comer-led effort sputtered and failed in August, with no articles of impeachment filed despite years of innuendo and threatening rhetoric.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee noted in a fact sheet that despite the rhetoric about obstruction from Comer and other Republicans, the committee had received over 14,000 pages of bank records pertaining to the Biden family.

“Not a single transaction shows any wrongdoing by the President,” Democrats noted.

At the same time, reporting alongside the Comer probe showed that Comer himself engaged in ethically dubious financial transactions that echoed his accusations against the Bidens.

And yet, Comer told Newsmax host Rob Schmitt that Sunday’s pardon of Hunter Biden was “the biggest public corruption scandal ever.”

Despite the chairman’s complaints about Biden’s son, Republicans were not as disturbed by Trump appointing his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner to senior government roles–even when they couldn’t pass a standard security clearance.

The party also turned a blind eye to the massive influx of foreign dollars that was spent at Trump’s hotels and other properties while he was empowered to make decisions affecting those governments as president.

According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), more than $13.6 million found its way into Trump’s hands just via this pathway.

But Comer isn’t calling on Bondi and Trump’s Department of Justice to address those concerns. Not yet, anyway—if ever.

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Thought Gaetz was a bad attorney general pick? Get a load of Pam Bondi

Posted on November 22, 2024 by Oliver Willis

Donald Trump has chosen to nominate former Florida Attorney General and Fox News guest host Pam Bondi to serve as his attorney general. Trump made the decision after his first choice, sex trafficking investigation subject Matt Gaetz, decided to drop out.

Bondi fits right in with Trump ideologically. During her time serving in Florida, Bondi focused on attacking the Affordable Care Act, which Trump has long pushed to repeal.

In 2012, she worked with other Republican attorneys general on a lawsuit meant to undo the law, which has extended health care coverage to millions of Americans. Bondi clearly relished her role as the public face of the suit and a 2012 Tampa Bay Times story quoted Bondi asking her team to take photos of her in front of the Supreme Court following a news conference there.

The case failed and the law has remained in place—with coverage expanded by the Biden/Harris administration.

Bondi was also part of a 2018 lawsuit that sought to strike down provisions in the law that require insurance companies to cover people with preexisting conditions. That effort also ultimately failed.

Like so many others in the Trump orbit, Bondi is a frequent part of the rotation of guests and guest hosts on Fox News.

In her appearances on the network the lawyer distinguished herself by referring to Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse as merely a “little boy out there trying to protect his community,” and by calling for schools to follow the post-9/11 airport security model in response to school shootings, as opposed to gun regulation.

Trump enlisted Bondi to argue his case on the Senate floor when he was impeached for using the presidency to solicit political favors from Ukraine, and she was one of the public faces of Trump’s efforts to promote election lies following his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

“We’ve won Pennsylvania,” Bondi claimed at the time—and in a Fox News appearance came up with a story about “fake ballots” purportedly being counted in the state. Trump lost Pennsylvania to Biden by over 80,000 votes.

Trump has frequently said that loyalty is extremely important to him, and Bondi has been an advocate for him for years.

Those ties have also led to the appearance of corruption. In 2016, Trump was forced to pay a penalty to the IRS after it was determined that he had broken tax laws by giving a political contribution to a Bondi-connected nonprofit.

Following that 2013 donation of $25,000 from Trump, Bondi decided not to investigate fraud claims against Trump University in her role as Florida attorney general. Years later, Trump paid out $25 million in settlements to students who said the organization had duped them with promises to impart the “secrets of success” in real estate.

Unlike Gaetz, Bondi may not have any ongoing sex trafficking investigations (that are publicly known at least) but she has proven herself a Trump diehard, which is his top qualification for the most important positions.

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Trump taps Pam Bondi for attorney general after Gaetz withdraws

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Associated Press

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday named Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, to be U.S. attorney general just hours after his other choice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his name from consideration.

Bondi is a longtime Trump ally and was one of his lawyers during his first impeachment trial, when he was accused — but not convicted — of abusing his power as he tried to condition U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on that country investigating then-former Vice President Joe Biden.

Bondi was among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his hush money criminal trial in New York that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts. She's been a chair at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank set up by former Trump administration staffers.

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans - Not anymore,” Trump said in a social media post. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”

Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. told Fox Business on Sunday that the transition team had backups in mind for his controversial nominees should they fail to get confirmed. The swift selection of Bondi came about six hours after Gaetz withdrew.

Matt Gaetz speaks to media outside the U.S. Capitol on June 11.

Gaetz stepped aside amid continued fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation that cast doubt on his ability to be confirmed as the nation's chief federal law enforcement officer.

That announcement capped a turbulent eight-day period in which Trump sought to capitalize on his decisive election win to force Senate Republicans to accept provocative selections like Gaetz, who had been investigated by the Justice Department before being tapped last week to lead it. The decision could heighten scrutiny on other controversial Trump nominees, including Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth, who faces sexual assault allegations that he denies.

“While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz, a Florida Republican who one day earlier met with senators in an effort to win their support, said in a statement.

“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1," he added. Hours later, Gaetz posted on social media that he looks “forward to continuing the fight to save our country,” adding, “Just maybe from a different post.”

Trump, in a social media post, said: “I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!”

Screenshot of Donald Trump’s Truth Social post on Nov. 21 announcing Pam Bondi as his new attorney general nominee.

Last week, Trump named personal lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and D. John Sauer to senior roles in the department. Another possible attorney general contender, Matt Whitaker, was announced Wednesday as the U.S. ambassador to NATO.

The most important accomplishment of impeaching Trump was its impact on Joe Biden

Posted on September 5, 2020 by Ian Reifowitz

Impeaching The Man Who Lost The Popular Vote was incredibly important, and not only because it was the right thing to do. Yes, he committed crimes and abused the power of his office, and yes he deserved to be impeached and removed from that office—the record of every Republican Senator other than Mitt Romney will be forever stained by their votes to acquit. History will remember their cowardice.

Beyond the morality, impeachment has had a clear, long-lasting political benefit, one that will pay dividends for Vice President Joe Biden this November. Thanks to impeachment, everyone knows that the charges Trump leveled against Joe and Hunter Biden on Ukraine—the ones he tried to blackmail that country’s president into investigating, or least announcing an intention to investigate—are utter malarkey.

Trump always feared running against Biden, and he acted corruptly in a failed bid to get enough dirt to derail the former VP’s quest to win the Democratic nomination. The impeachment process shone a bright light on Trump’s actions, and on his lies about Biden, ensuring that the smear campaign ultimately backfired.

Since the end of the impeachment trial, Trump and his minions have continued to bleat on with their completely invented and thoroughly debunked stories about the Bidens. I won’t dignify them by repeating the specifics here. Recently, Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson, who heads the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, have been “investigating”—i.e., trying to keep the story in the media—this bullshit.

Never mind that by falsely smearing Biden over Ukraine, Johnson and his fellow Republican senators are all but doing the work of Vladimir Putin for him, as this Associated Press article explained.

But the stark warning that Russia is working to denigrate the Democratic presidential candidate adds to questions about the probe by Johnson’s Senate committee and whether it is mimicking, even indirectly, Russian efforts and amplifying its propaganda.

The investigation is unfolding as the country, months removed from an impeachment case that had centered on Ukraine, is dealing with a pandemic and confronting the issue of racial injustice. Yet allegations about Biden and Ukraine remain a popular topic in conservative circles, pushed by Russian media and addressed regularly by President Donald Trump and other Republicans as a potential path toward energizing his supporters.

[...] “Particularly as a public official and somebody who’s responsible for keeping the country safe, you should always be suspicious of narratives that are trying to sort of damage or target the electoral process in your country,” said former CIA officer Cindy Otis, a foreign disinformation expert and vice president of analysis at Alethea Group. “You should always be suspicious of narratives that foreign countries are pumping out.”

As Daily Kos’ Kerry Eleveld pointed out, Johnson even admitted that his so-called probe would “would certainly help Donald Trump win reelection and certainly be pretty good, I would say, evidence about not voting for Vice President Biden.” It amazing; these Republicans always manage to say the quiet part out loud, which I guess is helpful. Nevertheless, to paraphrase what Otter said to his nemesis (and professional Republican, according to the character futures provided) Gregg Marmalard in Animal House, “Gee, you’re dumb.”

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Then the Orange Julius Caesar himself got into the act. On August 16 he retweeted material that our own intelligence agencies had previously identified as Russian disinformation—part of its effort to directly influence the presidential election by “denigrating” Biden. As CNN put it: “By retweeting material that the US government has already labeled as propaganda -- and doing so with the 2020 Democratic National Convention kicking off on Monday -- Trump demonstrated once again that he is willing to capitalize on foreign election meddling for his own political gain.” Here’s Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner:

The President of the United States should never be a willing mouthpiece for Russian propaganda. https://t.co/9y6L6uMKbM
— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) August 17, 2020

Then came the four-day marathon of lies known as the Republican National Convention. Former Florida (where else?) Attorney General Pam Bondi went before a national audience and, once again, did Putin’s bidding by lying about the Bidens and Ukraine. The truth? When Joe Biden sought the removal of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shukin he did so, as Greg Sargent of the Washington Post noted, “because the prosecutor was corrupt.” Sargent added some more important facts: “This was U.S. policy, backed by international institutions. GOP senators had no problem with it in real time. As The Post’s fact-checking team puts it, Bondi’s story is ‘fiction,’ and in reality, Joe Biden ‘was thwarting corruption, not abetting it.’” Bondi told some other lies about Hunter Biden, which the WaPo fact-checking team also debunked.

When these latter day Marmalards now issue their breathtaking press releases or repeat Russian disinformation about the Bidens and Ukraine, the media—thus far at least—has been taking them for what they are: Utter horseshit. I won’t say the media has learned their lesson, but unlike 2016, when “but her emails” was literally the most reported story of the campaign, this year everyone who isn’t directly sucking at the Trump teat is treating these debunked charges with the (lack of) seriousness they deserve.

For that, we can thank the impeachment of Donald Trump, which exposed the lies against the Bidens for what they are. The impeachment process inoculated the media and the American public by preparing them for what Trump is now trying to pull on this matter. So thank you Nancy Pelosi, thank you Adam Schiff, thank you Val Demings, thank you Jerry Nadler, and thanks to the rest of the Democratic impeachment team. I’m sure Joe Biden is thanking you as well.

Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)

Trump is using the pardon power to stroke his own ego, not advance mercy or justice

Posted on February 22, 2020 by Laura Clawson

When Donald Trump suddenly gave pardons or commutations to 11 people on Tuesday, you only had to glance at several of the names to know that Trump was doing favors for people in his social circles—people like him. Now we’re getting more information on how Trump made his decisions and on his clemency plans going forward, and it’s all classic Trump.

Bernard Kerik, the corrupt former New York City police commissioner, got a call early Tuesday morning giving him just hours to get supporters to sign a letter backing a pardon. He worked the phones and got some prominent Republicans like Geraldo Rivera and Rep. Peter King to sign, and just before noon he got a personal call from Trump giving him the news. David Safavian, the former Bush administration official who called Kerik and told him to pull together the letter, also got a pardon for his role in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. Safavian works at the American Conservative Union, which is headed by the husband of a Trump adviser.

Another of Trump’s corrupt-rich-white-guys-like-me pardons went to Paul Pogue, whose family has given $200,000 to Trump’s reelection effort and whose son and daughter-in-law hang out with Don Jr. And so on. Trump did grant clemency Tuesday to a few people who weren’t corrupt rich white guys—but even they had an inside connection in the form of Alice Johnson, the woman whose sentence Trump commuted in 2018 after lobbying by Kim Kardashian West.

Since Trump seems to enjoy giving clemency—favoring personal phone calls to people not expecting clemency so he can soak up the shock and gratitude—he’ll be doing more of this in the coming months. And he has no plans to revert to the traditional process where the Justice Department vets petitions. Instead the White House is doing the Trump White House thing and having pardons overseen by “essentially an informal task force of at least a half-dozen presidential allies.” OBVIOUSLY Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner is heavily involved, as is former Florida attorney general and impeachment defense team member Pam Bondi.

Mass incarceration remains out of control and it’s reasonable for presidents to use executive power to mitigate some of the harm while Congress drags its feet about making the degree of change that’s really needed. But that should look like what President Obama did, taking a hard look at excessive sentences and using an actual process to grant clemency to 1,715 people, the vast majority of them nonviolent drug offenders. Obama should have done more, because there was so much to be done, but he did do more than the 12 presidents before him—combined. Trump, instead, is treating the pardon power like another way to do personal favors and soak up the adoration he craves. It’s not about justice, it’s about Donald Trump’s ego.