In Broad Daylight

He told us who he was years ago. Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

Four stories that should really stop you in your tracks.

• The indictment. of James Comey

• Hegseth summons the generals.

• Tik Tok’s Crony Capitalism on steroids.

• Trump’s bottomless portrait pettiness.

Happy Friday.

It is tempting to think that we have been here before. We’ve seen Donald Trump ransack one norm after another. We’ve watched him strip the last vestiges of independence from the Department of Justice, enshittify the FBI, and target his opponents with threats both petty and terrifying. A lawlessly immune I-can-get-away-with-anything president has vowed vengeance for years.

Two years ago this week, I wrote: “Biden Is Old, But Trump Is Crazy (and fascist-adjacent).”

In the last few days, the leading GOP candidate for president — the twice impeached, defeated former president, who is facing four criminal indictments — suggested the execution of General Mark Milley; demanded a federal shutdown unless the prosecutions against him are defunded; called on all Senate Democrats to resign; and threatened to use the powers of the federal government to retaliate against news outlets like NBC that had criticized him.

This is the same former president who has called for terminating provisions of the Constitution; orchestrated a coup to overturn the last presidential election; and absconded with military secrets. Lest you have forgotten, he has also been found liable for sexual abuse; and faces more than 90 felony counts for (among other things) paying off a porn star, conspiracy, obstruction, and defrauding the federal government.

So, we were warned. Good and hard.

Even so…

The rushed indictment of former FBI director Comey feels different. Because it is.

A note to readers:

“The only moments in our lives that count for anything are those when we do the right thing, when we don’t have to look down at the table but can raise our heads and look each other in the eye. Nothing else matters.” — Alexei Navalny

Please consider joining us. Right now, fewer than 10 percent of our readers are paid subscribers. That’s fine. This newsletter is free, because you really can’t save democracy behind a paywall.

But if you think it has any value, please consider supporting our work.

A new circle of Hell

Trump’s escalation of his revenge campaign pushes us into uncharted wastelands. It is as if, on his sojourn through Hell, Dante had said, “Cavolo! There are even more circles down here.”

NBC’s Ken Dilanian’s DOJ sources are telling him: “The Comey indictment is among the worst abuses in DOJ history. Shocking. It’s hard to overstate how a big a moment this is.”

Indeed, it is. The indictment comes days after Trump’s social media bleat ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to go after Comey as well as Letitia James and others who had crossed him. When the acting US Attorney Erik Siebert refused — because there was no evidence they had committed a crime — Trump fired him and installed a loyal mediocrity who ignored the facts and the findings to do Trump’s bidding, the law be damned.

Via ABC: Prosecutors’ memo to new US attorney advised against plans to charge Comey: Sources

After a two-month investigation, federal prosecutors in Virginia were unable to gather sufficient evidence to support bringing criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress, sources tell ABC News.

The prosecutors earlier this week summarized their findings -- that probable cause does not exist to secure an indictment, let alone a conviction at trial -- in a detailed declination memo for Lindsey Halligan, President Donald Trump’s newly appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, sources said.

But on Thursday, Halligan handed Trump the head he demanded.

Garry Kasparov calls this “mafia politics”. But none of this is happening in the shadows. As Jimmy Kimmel noted the other night when he was talking about the threats from Trump’s mobbed up FFC Chair, Brendan’s Carr [“we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”]: “If you want to hear a mob boss make a threat like that, you have to hide a microphone in a deli and park outside in a van with a tape recorder all night long. This genius said it on a podcast.”

Trump and Bondi did it in broad daylight. Think of the Watergate tapes simply being blasted from the World’s Bigliest Loud Speakers.

This NYT piece captures the enormity of the Comey indictment: “A prosecutor’s drive to indict James Comey trampled over the Justice Department’s long tradition of keeping a distance from politics and the White House, and raised the prospect of more arbitrary charges.”

The rush to prosecute Mr. Comey was the clearest example yet of how the normal process of justice has been reversed under Mr. Trump, showing how the president came into his second term with targets already in mind and ultimately pressured the Justice Department, over a degree of internal resistance, into finding a way to charge a former director of the F.B.I.

Once upon a time, grownups in the White House or the DOJ would have stood athwart this sort of thing. They would have told the president he was crossing a red line. There would have been mass resignations. Statements of resistance. But those voices have mostly been silenced or disappeared. At least, so far.

ICYMI, Julian Zelizer and I discussed Trump’s “Broad Daylight Strategy.” Here’s a minute-long clip:

**

Indeed, Trump could not restrain himself from spiking Comey’s head. On Friday morning, Trump unleashed a vitriolic attack on the former FBI chief, calling him “A DIRTY COP” and demanding that he pay a “very big price.”

Whether you like Corrupt James Comey or not, and I can’t imagine too many people liking him, HE LIED! It is not a complex lie, it’s a very simple, but IMPORTANT one. There is no way he can explain his way out of it. He is a Dirty Cop, and always has been, but he was just assigned a Crooked Joe Biden appointed Judge, so he’s off to a very good start. Nevertheless, words are words, and he wasn’t hedging or in dispute. He was very positive, there was no doubt in his mind about what he said, or meant by saying it. He left himself ZERO margin of error on a big and important answer to a question. He just got unexpectedly caught. James “Dirty Cop” Comey was a destroyer of lives. He knew exactly what he was saying, and that it was a very serious and far reaching lie for which a very big price must be paid! President DJT

Trump followed minutes later, IN ALL CAPS:

JAMES COMEY IS A DIRTY COP. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

**

Comey is defiant, putting out a video response to the charges:

“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.

“We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either.

“Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant and she’s right. But I’m not afraid and I hope you’re not either. I hope instead you are engaged. You are paying attention. And you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does.

“My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I’m innocent.

“So let’s have a trial and keep the faith.”

BONUS: “Comey prosecutors, beware: ‘This could be career-ending’.” Adam Klasfeld and Harry Litman warn:

“Whoever’s signature is on the bottom of an indictment — if they somehow force one through — is going to be subject to really serious professional sanctions,” Litman said.

**

Who’s next? The list is long, and the targets are locked: John Bolton, James Brennan, Letitia James, Miles Taylor, and George Soros.¹ This is real. This is happening.

Hegseth summons the generals

“Hegseth orders rare, urgent meeting of hundreds of generals, admirals” - The Washington Post

WTF is this all about? Nobody seems to know, except that the whole thing is weird with hair on it.

The highly unusual directive was sent to virtually all of the military’s top commanders worldwide, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the matter. It was issued earlier this week, against the backdrop of a potential government shutdown, and as Hegseth’s overtly political moves have deepened a sense of distress among his opponents who fear that he is erasing the Defense Department’s status as a nonpartisan institution.

We, of course, will not speculate about what might happen. But others can. Here’s one especially dark scenario from an observer on Threads:

My prediction for the Pete Hegseth meeting:

-Every major US general will be forced to decide whether they are loyal to Donald Trump or the Constitution-If they side with Trump, they get to stay and do his work.

-If they side against Trump, they will be removed from their military positions and replaced with loyalists.

We may be facing down the largest mass firing in US military history if it goes the way I expect. And I expect the military to have a spine.

I would be tempted to dismiss this as unduly alarmist, except for this: General Michael Hayden — a retired four-star general who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency — reposted it with the comment, “I’m afraid that’s what’s going on.”

My initial reaction: Sounds like…. a coup?

Crony capitalism on steroids

Where do we begin with the whole Tik Tok thing? The obvious national security threat it posed? The fact that Congress voted by huge margins to ban it? That the law was upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court? That Donald Trump has openly, flagrantly and blatantly ignored the law?

Or the news that he’s now gifting the Chinese Trojan Horse to his cretinish cronies?

The White House hasn’t said exactly who would own the U.S. version of TikTok, but the list of potential investors includes several powerful allies of Mr. Trump. The software giant Oracle, whose co-founder is the billionaire Larry Ellison, will take a stake in U.S. TikTok. Mr. Trump has also said that the media mogul Rupert Murdoch is involved. A person familiar with the talks said the Murdoch investments would come through Fox Corporation.

ICYMI: David French lays out the real dangers of Tik Tok — and not just its infinite capacity to melt the minds of the young.

Portraits and Pettiness

I’m indebted to Chris Cillizza for this story, which I would otherwise have dismissed as a parody. It’s real.

He recounts an interview with Daily Caller reporter Reagan Reese, in which Trump said he was having a “Presidential Walk of Fame” built in the West Wing Colonnade, featuring portraits of all the presidents.

REESE: You’re going to put President Biden up too?

TRUMP: Okay — show it.

TRUMP: Isn’t that an interesting question.

REESE: I’m curious.

TRUMP: And I’ll listen to you too, because it’s a decision I have to make. We put up a picture of the autopen.

REESE: Oh, that’s hilarious.

TRUMP: He didn’t win the race. He lost badly. He was a horrible president, but can you imagine, he says he has Stage Nine cancer. That was, what? Two, three months ago…

Like Cillizza, I naively though he was joking about using a picture of an autopen — which is used to sign large numbers of documents — in place of an actual portrait of the 46th president.

But never, ever under-estimate the pettiness of this man. He did it. And here it is….

Exit take from Cillizza:

I am not trying to suggest this is a mountain in the Trump presidency. It’s a dumb picture. It’s not going to decide the 2026 election. Or change voters’ minds about Trump.

But, I do think it is revealing about what sits at the beating heart of Trumpism (and Trump). There’s a core pettiness there. It’s almost as if the trolling — ha ha, we made Biden look stupid! — is the point.

Because, otherwise, why do this? It’s a idiotic joke that a 6th grader would dream up. That Trump (or someone close to him) not only thought of doing this but then it also somehow got green-lit speaks to the fact that there is simply no adult in the room.

Friday dogs

Our French dog Zok, practicing for the World Cup. Photos by

A Dog A Day with Cindy Sykes

1. Justice Dept. Official Pushes to Investigate George Soros’s Foundation - The New York Times

A senior Justice Department official has instructed more than a half dozen U.S. attorney’s offices to draft plans to investigate a group funded by George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor whom President Trump has demanded be thrown in jail.

The official’s directive, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times, goes as far as to list possible charges prosecutors could file, ranging from arson to material support of terrorism. The memo suggests department leaders are following orders from the president that specific people or groups be subject to criminal investigation — a major break from decades of past practice meant to insulate the Justice Department from political interference.

The step came in an accelerated push by the Justice Department against Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies in recent days and weeks.