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Majority of Americans Agree Trump Is Weaponizing DOJ to Target Political Enemies
"The American people see exactly what's happening: Trump has corrupted the Department of Justice, turning it into his personal revenge machine," said the Not Above the Law coalition's co-chairs.
Oct 24, 2025
As President Donald Trump's ex-adviser John Bolton, former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, and Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James fight the various charges against them, polling published Thursday shows a majority of American adults think the Republican leader is using US law enforcement "to go after his enemies."
Reuters/Ipsos asked 4,385 adults on October 15-20 whether Trump was abusing federal law enforcement in this way. Fifty-five percent of all respondents said yes, including 85% of Democrats, 29% of Republicans, and 55% of adults who identified as "other." Just 26% of all respondents said no. The other 19% said they didn't know or skipped the question.
The Not Above the Law coalition's co-chairs—Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Brett Edkins of Stand Up America—have forcefully spoken out against Trump's abuse of the US Department of Justice (DOJ). They responded to the survey results in a statement.
"The American people see exactly what's happening: Trump has corrupted the Department of Justice, turning it into his personal revenge machine," they said. "When 55% of Americans—including 3 in 10 Republicans—recognize that the president is abusing law enforcement to prosecute his enemies, it's clear this isn't a partisan issue anymore. It's a threat to the rule of law that transcends party lines."
"The pattern is undeniable: James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton—all Trump critics charged after he publicly demanded their prosecution. DOJ has been co-opted to serve the president, not the public," the co-chairs continued.
Trump-appointed US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who leads the DOJ, and FBI Director Kash Patel, whose bureau is in the department, have both been accused of abusing their positions and politicizing their agencies for the president.
More than half of Americans, including about three in 10 Republicans, believe President Donald Trump is using federal law enforcement to go after his enemies, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.www.reuters.com/world/us/maj...
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— Brad Heath (@bradheath.bsky.social) October 23, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Comey pleaded not guilty earlier this month. His legal team is seeking the dismissal of charges stemming from his congressional testimony, arguing that the case is politically motivated and that Trump "defectively appointed" Lindsey Halligan, a former insurance lawyer, as interim US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.
James—who successfully prosecuted Trump for financial crimes—pleaded not guilty to mortgage fraud charges Friday morning, a day after her attorneys told the same court that she is also seeking to have her case dismissed and challenging "the unlawful appointment" of Halligan.
After James' Friday arraignment, Stand Up America executive director Christina Harvey said: "Let's be clear: The Department of Justice is targeting Attorney General James because she dared to hold Trump accountable and won. Meanwhile, the Department turns a blind eye as Trump and his cronies cash in on the presidency, even when they're caught red-handed taking $50,000 in exchange for promised government contracts."
"Trump is acting like a wannabe dictator—trying to jail his political enemies, defying the courts, and deploying the military against his own people. That’s not leadership, it's tyranny," Harvey stressed. "This isn't just about one case or one prosecutor. The weaponization of the justice system is a threat to every American. If Trump is allowed to abuse the DOJ to punish his critics, then no one is safe."
Halligan is not handling Bolton's Espionage Act case in Maryland, which began under the Biden administration. While he has also pleaded not guilty, experts have pointed out that, as University of Alabama law professor and former US attorney Joyce Vance put it, "instead of the factually deficient indictments we're seen in the other cases, this is the sort of detailed indictment we are used to seeing in a serious matter."
Regardless of how those cases play out, the coalition co-chairs said that "this poll confirms what we've been warning about: Trump's abuse of power is eroding faith in federal institutions as neutral enforcers of the law and deepening the divisions tearing our country apart. Trump's actions threaten the freedom and safety of all Americans."
The poll also found that Americans are increasingly concerned about "US political division and conflict"—43%, up from 39% two years ago. Additionally, 61% of respondents believe ongoing redistricting efforts aimed at next year's midterm elections are bad for democracy, and the same percentage said it is no longer possible to draw political maps fairly.
In addition to the DOJ prosecuting Trump's political enemies and Republican state lawmakers gerrymandering in the middle of the decade to appease him, the president has designated antifa—an anti-fascist movement with no central organizational structure or leaders—as a domestic terrorist group and, relatedly, issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7.
While dozens of congressional Democrats warned last week that "the sweeping language and broad authority in these directives pose serious constitutional, statutory, and civil liberties risks, especially if used to target political dissent, protest, or ideological speech," Congressman Lance Gooden (R-Texas) urged the DOJ to investigate the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) for "close ties with left-wing extremists and domestic terrorist organizations like antifa."
Responding on Thursday, the group said that "we all know that this is not the first time the NLG has faced political attacks from the US government. Since our founding in 1937, NLG members have been at the frontlines of defending those who challenge fascism and have been the target of state repression. This is a history we are proud of... The NLG will continue to speak out in support of activists and movements most targeted by state repression."
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Prosecutor Handpicked to Go After Trump's Enemies Attacked Journalist in Bizarre Texts
Some observers speculated that US Attorney Lindsey Halligan may have violated federal law by sending "disappearing messages" about an ongoing case.
Oct 21, 2025
Lindsey Halligan, the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who was hand-picked by President Donald Trump to bring criminal charges against his political rivals, left a legal journalist befuddled earlier this month when she sent unsolicited text messages containing sensitive details about one of her highest-profile cases.
On Monday night, Anna Bower, a senior editor at Lawfare, published the full text message exchange, which pertained to the prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James, against whom Halligan brought charges for mortgage fraud earlier this month.
The case against James has been widely criticized as politically motivated, as James had previously brought a case against Trump for financial crimes, which resulted in a finding against him in a civil fraud trial in 2022.
The president appointed Halligan, a former insurance lawyer who has never prosecuted a criminal case but previously worked as a personal attorney for Trump, to take over for her predecessor, Erik Siebert, who was forced out for declining to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey on what he believed to be flimsy charges.
Halligan first messaged Bower on October 11, just two days after the indictment against James had been handed up by the Department of Justice (DOJ), accusing her of misrepresenting how she intended to use a rental property in Norfolk, Virginia, to secure a better mortgage rate in 2020, allegedly by claiming that it was for personal use as a "second home" when she was actually renting it to a family of three.
Even before Halligan's texts, Bower said she was "among the skeptics" of the case's merits, noting that the type of mortgage agreement signed by James not only allowed her to rent the property after a year, but that the indictment "provides scant details about the circumstances of the supposed rental arrangement" James supposedly made with clients in violation of her mortgage contract.
Her perception was bolstered by reporting from the New York Times, which revealed that since 2020, the home has been occupied by James' grand-niece, who does not pay rent on the property, and that James stays there several times per year.
In response to the report, Bower—an analyst who often provides commentary on legal stories that she did not herself report—posted on X that “this is important exculpatory evidence because the indictment accuses James of seeking a ‘second home’ mortgage when in reality she intended to use it as an ’investment’ home by renting it.”
This post apparently caught the attention of Halligan, who messaged Bower on Signal later that afternoon.
"Anna, Lindsey Halligan here," the first message read. "You are reporting things that are simply not true. Thought you should have a heads up."
Bower explained: "I assumed the exchange was a hoax because, while it is not unusual for lawyers to reach out to me about my reporting or commentary, it is highly unusual for a US attorney to do so regarding an ongoing prosecution—particularly in a high-profile case in which her conduct is already the subject of immense public scrutiny."
But she later confirmed it was Halligan, and asked what precisely her post had gotten wrong.
Halligan responded: "You're assuming exculpatory evidence without knowing what you're talking about. It's just bizarre to me. If you have any questions, before you report, feel free to reach out to me. But jumping to conclusions does your credibility no good."
Noting that she was not the person who reported the story, Bower asked if the Times report had gotten something wrong. Halligan brought the conversation back to Bower.
"Yes they did but you went with it!" she said. "Without even fact checking anything!!!!"
Halligan referred Bower to the DOJ's indictment of James, but Bower noted that the indictment's "odd and ambiguous" wording did not actually contradict the Times' reporting. When she asked for more clarification about what specific details were inaccurate, Halligan said "I can't tell you grand jury stuff," even though her discussion with Bower had already discussed grand jury materials.
When Bower explained that it was still "unclear" what the Times report had gotten wrong, Halligan began to launch into a personal attack against her.
"You're biased," Halligan wrote. "Your reporting isn't accurate. I'm the one handling the case and I'm telling you that. If you want to twist and torture the facts to fit your narrative, there's nothing I can do. Waste to even give you a heads up."
Bower again insisted that she'd be "happy to correct" any mistakes, but that she "can't do so without a sense of what I supposedly got wrong."
Halligan replied: "Continue to do what you have been and you'll be completely discredited when the evidence comes out."
Over the subsequent days, when Bower would continue to reach out to Halligan to ask about other aspects of the case, she was met with more insults and eventually silence.
When Bower reached out to the DOJ for comment, a spokesperson responded that Halligan was "attempting to point you to facts, not gossip, but when clarifying that she would adhere to the rule of the law and not disclose grand jury information, you threaten to leak an entire conversation."
"Good luck ever getting anyone to talk to you when you publish their texts," theDOJ added.
After sending the DOJ another set of follow-up questions on Monday in anticipation of the story's publication, Bower received another text from Halligan minutes before the story was to be posted. Bower described the exchange as follows:
"By the way—everything I ever sent you is off record. You're not a journalist so it's weird saying that but just letting you know."
I responded: "I'm sorry, but that's not how this works. You don't get to say that in retrospect."
Halligan was unpersuaded: "Yes I do. Off record."
"I am really sorry. I would have been happy to speak with you on an off the record basis had you asked," I said. "But you didn't ask, and I still haven't agreed to speak on that basis. Do you have any further comment for the story?
To my surprise, she kept going: "It's obvious the whole convo is off record. There's disappearing messages and it's on signal. What is your story? You never told me about a story."
Halligan has a bachelor's degree in politics and broadcast journalism from Regis University. And as Bower notes, she has frequently dealt with the press as a member of Trump's legal team.
"As anyone who professionally engages with the media as routinely as Halligan would know, the default assumption when a reporter speaks with a public official is that everything is 'on the record,' meaning that anything the source says can be printed with attribution," Bower wrote.
The saga is the latest in a series of gaffes that have called Halligan's credibility as a prosecutor into question.
Her indictment against Comey has been ridiculed by legal scholars for being "almost devoid of factual material," as Benjamin Wittes, the co-director of the Harvard Law School-Brookings Project on Law and Security, put it. While attempting to present charging documents to a magistrate judge, she mistakenly presented two inconsistent documents, which the judge said "has never happened before."
While attempting to have the case against Comey for allegedly making false statements thrown out of court, his attorneys argued that Halligan altered some of his testimony, including by claiming that he was speaking about “Hillary Clinton” when he was actually answering a question about “the Clinton administration.”
Following the reveal of her exchanges with Bower, Andrew Fleischman, a trial and appellate lawyer in Georgia, joked on social media that "Halligan has all the poise and butt-dialing capacity of a sober [Rudy] Giuliani."
Others, like Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, raised the possibility that Halligan’s use of “disappearing messages” on Signal could have violated federal law, which requires federal prosecutors to preserve evidence that may be favorable to the accused.
In a CNN interview with Kaitlan Collins on Monday night, following the release of the texts, Bower explained that she has spoken to other legal reporters and prosecutors in the days since her conversation with Halligan.
Her sources in the legal profession, she said, "have never quite seen an exchange like this.”
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Indictment of Ex-Trump Adviser John Bolton Called a 'Warning Shot to Every American'
The indictment has been condemned as part of the president's crackdown on his "enemies list," but some legal experts are also highlighting how the case differs from those of Letitia James and James Comey.
Oct 17, 2025
While critics of John Bolton have long called for him to be tried at the International Criminal Court, the federal indictment of President Donald Trump's ex-national security adviser on Thursday is generating widespread alarm.
Bolton surrendered at a courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland Friday morning after a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging him with violating the Espionage Act—specifically 18 counts of unlawfully retaining and transmitting national defense information. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.
When former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey was indicted last month, Trump pledged that "there'll be others." Then Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James—who successfully prosecuted the president for financial crimes—was indicted last week. Critics accuse Trump of weaponizing the US Department of Justice (DOJ) against his enemies.
Some of the reactions to Bolton's indictment were similar, including from the 76-year-old himself, who served in not only Trump's first term but also the Reagan and both Bush administrations. He said in a lengthy statement that "Donald Trump's retribution" against him began when he resigned from the president's first administration and began publicly criticizing him.
"Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he deems enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts," Bolton said. "These charges are not just about his focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive efforts to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct."
"Dissent and disagreement are foundational to America's constitutional system, and vitally important to our freedom," added Bolton, a longtime advocate of regime change in other countries. "I look forward to the fight to defend my lawful conduct and to expose his abuse of power."
Bolton's lawyer is Abbe Lowell, who is also representing James and Lisa Cook, whom Trump is trying to oust from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. His former clients include the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner. Lowell said that "like many public officials throughout history, Ambassador Bolton kept diaries—that is not a crime."
Co-chairs of the Not Above the Law coalition—Praveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Brett Edkins of Stand Up America—connected Bolton to James and Comey in a Friday statement:
Three indictments in three weeks. Three Trump critics. Three prosecutions designed to intimidate anyone who dares challenge this president. Three people who were on Trump's "enemies list." The pattern is undeniable: Speak out against Trump, become a target of the DOJ.
The message from this administration couldn't be clearer: Loyalty gets rewarded, dissent gets investigated. While Trump's handpicked prosecutors work overtime delivering indictments against his critics, actual threats to American safety go unaddressed.
A Department of Justice that acts in service of presidential revenge rather than public safety threatens democracy itself. This isn't just about Bolton—it's a warning shot to every American that dissent now comes with the threat of prosecution.
Congress has a constitutional duty to intervene, restore DOJ independence, and end this dangerous abuse of law enforcement before more lives are destroyed for political purposes.
However, University of Alabama law professor and former US attorney Joyce Vance argued on Substack Friday that the Bolton indictment "is entirely different" from those against Comey and James in the Eastern District of Virginia, pointing out that "the US attorney in Maryland is a career prosecutor. But she didn't go into the grand jury to obtain the indictment. It's signed off on by two senior prosecutors in her office as well as lawyers from DOJ's National Security Division."
"Instead of the factually deficient indictments we've seen in the other cases, this is the sort of detailed indictment we are used to seeing in a serious matter," she highlighted. "There is undoubtedly truth to the allegation that Donald Trump wanted Bolton prosecuted. But the intervening layer of professional prosecutors here, people who assessed the case and the evidence and decided there was enough to move forward, may make it difficult to win a selective prosecution argument."
"In the Comey and James cases, experienced prosecutors declined to bring the cases, and the US attorney sacrificed his job for principle. The cases were only brought because Trump dropped in a loyalist to replace him," Vance added. "Here, unless Bolton has some evidence that these prosecutors did not proceed professionally, he may not have a winnable legal argument."
CNN's Aaron Blake published a similar analysis early Friday. Blake also noted that in 2020, US District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, "ruled in Bolton's favor in a civil case stemming from a dispute with the Trump administration over the publication of Bolton's book. But Lamberth otherwise excoriated Bolton for his handling of classified information."
Meanwhile, Chip Gibbons, policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent, used Bolton's indictment to call for broader reforms on Friday. He began by noting that "John Bolton is an unrepentant war criminal and one of most odious national security hawks in Washington. As part of his antipathy for press freedom, whistleblowers, and anyone who challenges the national security state, he called for both Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden to be executed for exposing abuses of power by our government."
"Similarly, he called for journalist Julian Assange to get 'at least 176 years in jail' for publishing truthful information about US war crimes," Gibbons explained. "Now, Bolton, like Manning, Snowden, and Assange has been indicted under the Espionage Act."
"We at Defending Rights & Dissent were one of the leading voices in Washington in support of Manning, Snowden, and Assange. And we remain the leading voice on reforming the Espionage Act so it can no longer be used to prosecute courageous whistleblowers and journalists," he said. "As part of our reform proposal, we advocated the Espionage Act be amended to require the government to prove a defendant intended to harm the national security of the US."
"Nothing in the indictment of Bolton indicates the government believes Bolton had that level of intent," Gibbons stressed. "As a result, we do not believe Bolton should be indicted under the Espionage Act. This is the same position we took regarding Donald Trump, who himself has been responsible for abusing the Espionage Act to silence journalists and whistleblowers."
"The Espionage Act is an overly broad, archaic law. As a result, it is ripe for selective, politically motivated enforcement. It is for these reasons that Bolton championed it as a tool for political persecutions against whistleblowers and journalists. And it is for this reason the Trump administration has chosen it as a tool for their petty retaliation against a national security hawk who shares much of their views on the use of the Espionage Act," he concluded. "Enough is enough. It is well past time to reform the Espionage Act once and for all."
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