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Thoughts on How to Fight Trump’s Corrupt Prosecutions

How Democrats can respond to the corruption at the heart of Trump’s DOJ

Dan Pfeiffer

Sep 26

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At the risk of being hyperbolic, yesterday felt like a hinge point for the American experiment in democracy.

Donald Trump’s handpicked prosecutor indicted former FBI Director Jim Comey for a crime even though law enforcement officials believe there was insufficient evidence to support the charge. When the previous U.S. Attorney refused to bring the case, Trump replaced him with a political crony with no prosecutorial experience.

This is not a small thing. It’s not Trump being Trump or “a sign of how things have changed in the Trump era.”

This is an abuse of power on the scale of Watergate — and this is just the beginning.

Reports suggest that Lindsay Halligan, the Trump crony who brought the indictment, is preparing to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James next. The New York Times reports that political appointees at the Department of Justice are badgering prosecutors to find some reason to go after George Soros’s foundation. The FBI raided the home of John Bolton, a Trump critic. Trump is also pushing for charges against Senator Adam Schiff, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, former CIA Director John Brennan, and anyone else who dares to get in his way.

These things are not supposed to happen in the United States. Law enforcement is not supposed to be a political weapon. When Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire the special prosecutor investigating Watergate, Richardson resigned rather than carry out the order. When Trump ordered Bondi to charge Comey, she didn’t resign. She carried out his dictate and then bragged about it on Twitter.

There has been considerable speculation that Comey will ultimately not be convicted because the case is so weak, but that is cold comfort. The mere fact of the indictment harms Comey by forcing him to spend money on lawyers. More importantly, it sends a message to anyone who wants to oppose Trump that they could be next.

With Republicans controlling every lever of power in Washington, it’s easy to feel powerless in moments like these. But there are things Democrats can do to fight back and make sure Trump pays a price for abusing his power.

1. We Cannot Let This Be Normalized

I worry this will become yet another entry in the cycle of outrage followed by acceptance that has defined so much of Trump’s second term. You know the pattern: Trump does something dangerously unprecedented, everyone yells about it for a day or two, and then the furor dies down. Before too long, the behavior is normalized and treated by the political chattering class as ordinary politics.

For example, Politico Playbook wrote this morning:

Many on the left saw it as a Rubicon-crossing moment. “The Justice Department we have long known is dead,” said Matthew Miller, the Obama-era DOJ vet. “As in many authoritarian states, it now exists as an arm of the government to punish the president’s enemies, regardless of the law. A tragedy for the country with lasting implications, even if this case is dismissed.”
But MAGA loyalists could barely contain their glee. “Comey f–ked around and found out,” Mike Davis, Trump legal defender and member of his DOJ landing team during the transition, told Playbook in a text message late last night.

This is a classic example of “both-sidesing” an issue — a refusal to clearly call out an abuse of power and a threat to democracy.

While I don’t think our time is best spent policing headlines in elite media outlets that reach a shrinking audience, we also cannot allow this behavior to be normalized. Our outrage can’t fade because of time or exhaustion. Democrats — and all of us — need to call out what is happening and explain why it’s a threat.

Whether it’s the FCC threatening broadcasters to keep Jimmy Kimmel off the air or prosecutions of political opponents, Trump is trying to criminalize dissent.

Much like Kimmel did in his monologue the other night, we need to talk about this with clarity and simplicity, without equivocation. Describing what is happening directly will always be more effective than leaning on grand historical analogies or auditioning for a role in Hamilton.

2. Call It Corrupt

Democrats have struggled to fit Trump’s authoritarian transgressions into a coherent narrative. One reason is the sheer speed of his actions. By the time we have a message, something worse has already happened. This “flood the zone” strategy works because in a short-attention-span era, effective communication requires time and repetition — and there’s never enough of either.

Another reason is language. People who’ve spent their careers in politics know how to talk about tax cuts for the rich, jobs shipped overseas, cuts to Medicare and Social Security, even unjust wars. But creeping authoritarianism is not something most politicians have dealt with, and it shows. Democrats bounce awkwardly between dire warnings about the end of democracy and more traditional campaign messaging on bread-and-butter issues. It often feels like two separate conversations.

We need a simpler frame, one that resonates with voters: corruption.

Trump is abusing his power, ignoring the advice of career prosecutors, and targeting his enemies. With Kimmel and the FCC, it’s big government colluding with corporations to silence critics. With TikTok, it’s a multibillion-dollar deal steered to pro-Trump billionaires. With Tom Homan, DOJ dropped an investigation after he was caught on tape taking $50,000 in a paper bag from an undercover FBI agent.

Authoritarianism is corruption in action. And calling it that connects Trump’s abuses to something voters already understand and despise.

3. Make Trump’s Abuse of Power a Midterm Issue

Democrats may not hold power now, but that could change soon. The midterms are around the corner, and if Democrats win the House, they will gain subpoena power and the ability to hold high-profile hearings on Trump’s abuse of the Department of Justice.

We should make that clear: electing a Democratic majority is the only way to check Trump’s corrupt overreach. Historically, there’s always been a segment of voters who want divided government as a guardrail against a president. That instinct is one reason presidents typically lose seats in the midterms.

And the polling is on our side. A CBS News/YouGov poll earlier this year found that two-thirds of voters believe Trump is trying to increase his power — and only 18 percent want the president to have more authority.

The corruption frame allows Democrats to fold together Trump’s political prosecutions, his war on free speech, his tariffs, his crypto schemes, his favors to Qatar, his deployment of troops to U.S. cities, and the illegal deportations carried out by masked ICE agents.

And this message matters even before the election. Everyone carrying out Trump’s extra-legal orders should know Democrats will investigate and expose their corruption. Many may feel there’s danger in disobeying Trump, but they need to understand there’s risk in obedience too.

Each of us has the power to make sure that the people in our lives know about Trump’s corrupt weaponization of the federal government. In an era where people distrust the media and politicians, we are the most powerful messengers for our friends and family. Sending these stories in the group chat or mentioning them at family dinner can go a long way.

There are 165,000 members of the Message Box community. If we each share these stories with five people, we will reach a number of people larger than the margin of the last few presidential elections.

Going forward, I will call on this community more often to serve as a megaphone for the anti-Trump movement.

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