A Democracy Drive Thread
Turning the Justice Department against the people who investigated and prosecuted him — indictments brought by a loyalist with no prosecutorial experience, then thrown out as unlawful.
After returning to office, the president directed the machinery of federal law enforcement at the very people who had investigated or prosecuted him — former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and former special counsel Jack Smith. This thread tracks that campaign in chronological order, with sources: the public demands for prosecution, the removal of a U.S. attorney who declined to bring charges and his replacement with a loyalist, the indictments that followed, and the courts and grand juries that threw them out. The entries are presented in order so the sequence speaks for itself.
January 27, 2025
In the administration’s first week, the Justice Department fired at least a dozen officials who had worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s two prosecutions of Trump, with the acting attorney general saying they could not be trusted to implement the president’s agenda. Smith himself had resigned days earlier. Over the following months the FBI also fired agents who had worked the cases.
May 8, 2025
Bill Pulte, Trump’s appointee atop the Federal Housing Finance Agency, referred New York Attorney General Letitia James — whose office had won the civil fraud judgment against Trump — to the Justice Department, alleging she misrepresented properties to obtain better mortgage terms. The FBI opened a criminal investigation in May. James’s office called it political retaliation.
May 19, 2025
After Comey posted an Instagram photo of seashells arranged as “86 47” on May 15, administration officials cast it as a threat against the president. The Secret Service questioned him and the Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation. Comey deleted the post, saying he had meant it as a political message.
July 8, 2025
The Justice Department confirmed it had opened criminal investigations into former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan — both central to the inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election — following a referral from CIA Director John Ratcliffe alleging possible false statements to Congress.
July 16, 2025
Maurene Comey — a veteran federal prosecutor in Manhattan who handled the Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean “Diddy” Combs cases — was fired with no stated reason beyond a reference to the president’s authority. She is James Comey’s daughter. In a message to colleagues she warned that firing a career prosecutor without cause would let fear seep into the decisions of those who remained.
“Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought.”
August 1, 2025
The Office of Special Counsel — a small federal watchdog agency — opened a Hatch Act investigation into Jack Smith, alleging his prosecutions of Trump had been politically motivated, after a request from Sen. Tom Cotton. Records later showed the probe issued nearly 200 subpoenas seeking records on roughly 430 Republican individuals and entities.
August 21, 2025
A New York appeals court vacated the roughly half-billion-dollar penalty in the civil fraud case Letitia James had won against Trump, ruling the fine violated the Eighth Amendment’s bar on excessive fines, while leaving other nonmonetary penalties in place. The decision removed the financial heart of the case that had made James a top target — even as the criminal pursuit of her continued.
September 20, 2025
In a Truth Social post addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, the president demanded immediate criminal action against former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Sen. Adam Schiff, declaring they were “guilty as hell” and that nothing was being done. Putting prosecutorial demands in writing collapsed the customary wall between the White House and Justice Department charging decisions.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”
September 22, 2025
Erik Siebert, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was pushed out after his office concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge Comey or James. The president installed Lindsey Halligan — a former personal lawyer and White House aide who had never worked as a prosecutor — as interim U.S. Attorney. Within days she personally secured the indictments her predecessor had declined to bring.
September 25, 2025
A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted Comey on two counts — making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding — tied to his September 2020 Senate testimony about the FBI’s Russia investigation. The charges were filed days before the five-year statute of limitations expired, brought by Halligan within days of taking over the office.
October 9, 2025
Halligan’s office indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James — whose office had won a multimillion-dollar civil fraud judgment against Trump — on one count of bank fraud and one of making a false statement to a financial institution, alleging she misrepresented a property to obtain better mortgage terms. She pleaded not guilty at her October 24 arraignment and called the case political retribution.
November 24, 2025
U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed the indictments against both Comey and James, ruling that Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. Attorney had been unlawful and that everything flowing from it was invalid. The dismissals were without prejudice, leaving open the possibility of re-charging.
“All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment … were unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside.”
December 4, 2025
After the dismissal, the Justice Department sought a fresh indictment of James — and a federal grand jury declined to return one. It was a rare rebuke; grand juries almost always indict when prosecutors ask them to.
January 22, 2026
Former special counsel Jack Smith — who had brought the federal classified-documents and January 6 cases against Trump — testified publicly before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, which had subpoenaed him in October and deposed him behind closed doors in December. Smith testified that the decision to charge Trump was his alone and rested on Trump’s own conduct. As he testified, the president called for Smith himself to be criminally prosecuted.
“Based on his testimony today, there is no question that Deranged Jack Smith should be prosecuted for his actions.”
February 23, 2026
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — the Trump appointee who had dismissed the classified-documents prosecution — permanently blocked release of the second volume of Smith’s report on that case, granting requests from Trump and two co-defendants. The volume covered the documents investigation the public was never allowed to see.
March 12, 2026
DOJ’s Southern District of Florida — before Judge Aileen Cannon, the lone judge at the Fort Pierce courthouse — convened a grand jury for a sweeping “grand conspiracy” investigation alleging that Comey, Brennan and other former officials conspired against Trump from 2016 onward. It has issued more than 130 subpoenas, including one to Comey, and the department removed a national-security section chief who resisted, installing Trump loyalist Joseph diGenova.
March 25, 2026
Four months after the case against her was dismissed, Bill Pulte filed new criminal referrals against James — this time alleging homeowners-insurance fraud — directed to two Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys in Florida and Illinois. Her counsel called it a continuing political vendetta.
In handing records to House Republicans to discredit Smith, the Justice Department disclosed a January 2023 internal memo revealing that prosecutors had evidence Trump took a document so sensitive only six people in the government were cleared to see it — and that Susie Wiles had witnessed Trump showing a classified map to others on his plane. The effort to bury the case instead surfaced some of its most damaging findings.
April 28, 2026
Six months after his first case was thrown out, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted Comey again — this time on two counts of threatening the president under 18 U.S.C. § 871. The charge rested on a May 2025 Instagram post in which Comey shared a photo of seashells arranged to read “86 47,” which prosecutors cast as a threat against the 47th president. Comey had deleted the post, saying he had meant it as a political message and hadn’t realized the numbers were linked to violence. He faces up to 10 years.
“I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence.”