Trump Took Key Steps Into Authoritarianism This Week
President Donald Trump doubled down on his dangerous drive for authoritarian powers this week even as it continues to generate harsh criticism from Americans.
From issuing an order that targets left-wing political groups to demanding and then receiving an indictment by federal prosecutors against one of his leading foes, Trump is intensifying his effort to use the vast powers of the U.S. government to to stifle dissent, advance his political and personal interests and target those who try to hold him accountable.
Thursday evening, Trump’s hand-picked U.S. attorney in eastern Virginia secured an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, one of the president’s leading political adversaries.
The indictment, which came just days after Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to go after his political opponents and perceived enemies more aggressively, made it clear that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is now taking direct orders from the president.
That openly violates the department’s longstanding principle of independence from the White House. The norm, which arose after the Watergate scandal, is codified in the DOJ’s internal rulebook and it is meant to protect the rule of law and shield the department from political bias.
Trump immediately celebrated the indictment, saying “JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” had been served, even though Comey remains innocent until proven guilty.
“One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey,” Trump said in a social media post.
The indictment against Comey was brought by Lindsey Halligan, one of the president’s former personal attorneys who has very little prosecutorial experience.
Trump installed Halligan as temporary U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after forcing Erik Siebert, the district’s former U.S. attorney, from his post. Siebert had raised concerns about potentially charging Comey and other enemies of the president.
Halligan personally presented the case against Comey before a grand jury and was the only DOJ official to sign off on it. In fact, the indictment came over the objections of career prosecutors in the district, and roiled several DOJ officials, MSNBC reports.
Legal experts noted it’s highly unusual for a U.S. attorney alone to bring an indictment, especially one as high-profile and politically charged as the one against Comey. Normally, assistant U.S. attorneys present cases before grand juries and sign off on indictments.
The charging document was remarkably light on details. It accused the former FBI chief of making false statements to a Senate committee in September 2020, and obstructing a congressional investigation. It did not specify what the alleged false statement was.
Comey, in a video statement posted Thursday evening, said he was innocent and welcomed a trial.
“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way,” Comey said. “We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either.”
If convicted, Comey could face a maximum of five years in prison. Comey’s case has been assigned to Judge Michael Nachmanoff, an appointee of former President Joe Biden. Comey is set to be arraigned in a federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, on Oct. 9.
Trump has long vowed to get retribution on Comey over the FBI’s investigation into links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. Comey, too, has become a vocal critic of the president.
In addition to its probe into Comey, the Eastern District of Virginia is investigating mortgage fraud allegations against New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), who won a multi-million dollar judgment against the Trump Organization and has challenged several aspects of his political agenda.
James was accused of committing mortgage fraud over the purchase of a home in Virginia in 2023 based on preliminary loan documents obtained by Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Pulte has leveled mortgage fraud allegations against several of the president’s political opponents, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook.
“There’ll be others,” Trump said Friday after being asked who he will target next.
The Comey indictment came shortly after Trump signed a new presidential memorandum that amounted to a thinly veiled order for the government to go after liberal nonprofit organizations that fund the political left.
Asked what groups or people the order was meant to target, Trump mentioned Democratic megadonors George Soros and Reid Hoffman.
Trump and many of his fellow Republicans have long falsely asserted that Soros funds violence in the U.S. through his nonprofit the Open Society Foundations. Earlier this month, Trump said Soros should be “jailed” because “he’s a bad guy.”
The New York Times reported that senior DOJ officials recently directed several U.S. attorneys offices across the country to open investigations into the Open Society Foundations.
Trump’s memo directed the federal government to investigate “institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations, that are responsible for, sponsor or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct.”
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, Trump repeatedly falsely claimed that progressive organizations fund political violence and terrorism in the U.S., while other senior White House officials have vowed to “destroy” such groups.
While the Trump administration claimed that the memo was meant to curb political violence, legal experts observed that it instead largely targets actions protected by the First Amendment by implying that speech and violence are synonymous.
The memo calls on law enforcement agencies to disrupt “networks, entities, and organizations” the government considers responsible for political agitation “before they result in violent political acts.”
Several different federal guidelines and laws prohibit law enforcement from investigating Americans based solely on activity protected by the First Amendment.
In terms of specific actions, the memo ordered the DOJ and Department of Treasury to use anti-terrorism financial tools against unspecified organizations. It also directed the Internal Revenue Service commissioner “to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism.”
Since returning to the White House, Trump has repeatedly threatened to strip left-leaning organizations of their tax exemptions.
While unveiling the order, the president and other top officials conflated recent acts of left-wing dissent with organized terrorism.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s homeland security advisor who recently referred to the Democratic Party as “a domestic extremist organization,” said without evidence that Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 were organized by unspecified organizations and amounted to terrorism.
Autocrats the world over have long used baseless allegations of terrorism and violence to go after nonprofits that do not bow to their authority in order to break down civil societies that pose a fundamental threat to their power and control.
“After one of the most harrowing weeks for our First Amendment rights, the President is invoking political violence, which we all condemn, as an excuse to target non-profits and activists with the false and stigmatizing label of ‘domestic terrorism,’” Hina Shamsi, an ACLU director, said in a statement.
“This is a shameful and dangerous move. But the President cannot rewrite the Constitution by memo,” Shamsi said.
The memo against nonprofits came just days after Trump signed a separate memo claiming to designate the leaderless and decentralized anti-fascist movement antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization.”
Experts warned that through the two memos, Trump is less concerned about curbing political violence and more concerned about stamping out an idea and creating a cudgel to use against any form of left-wing protest activity.
After excusing right-wing extremism earlier this month, Trump this week seemed to suggest that “radical-left Democrats” would be responsible for provoking further violence from the right.
“Bad things happen when they play these games,” Trump said of Democrats. “I’ll give you a little clue — the right is a lot tougher than the left … They better not get them energized because it won’t be good for the left, and I don’t want to see that happen either.”