Attorney General Pam Bondi is creating a “Weaponization Working Group” to review the lawfare cases brought against President Donald J. Trump prior to his reelection, to investigate whether they amounted to “politicized justice.” Former Special Counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and New York Attorney General Letitia James will be the first to be reviewed, according to reports.
Bondi is issuing a memo warning, “When Justice Department attorneys refuse to faithfully carry out their role by, for example, refusing to advance good-faith arguments or declining to sign briefs, it undermines the constitutional order and deprives the President of the benefit of his lawyers,” and that “any Justice Department attorney who declines to sign a brief, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Trump administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the Justice Department’s mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination.”
Smith’s federal cases against Trump, centered on the America First leader’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and involvement in the unrest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, both fell apart in shambolic fashion, with a judge finding he had not even been constitutionally appointed.
Bragg’s highly dubious and novel state case against Trump, notionally concerned with so-called hush money payments, is the only one to have resulted in convictions—currently subject to appeal—despite even CNN judging it to be an “ill-conceived, unjustified mess.”
James’s civil fraud case was similarly dubious, relying on, among other things, an absurdly low valuation of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Appellate judges seem highly skeptical of the case, questioning its legal basis and apparent lack of precedent, as well as the enormous $454 million penalty handed down by Democrat donor judge Arthur Engoron, considering Trump’s offense of supposedly overvaluing his net worth during a loan application created no victims, with the loan paid off in full with no complaint by the bank involved.
