Letitia James criminally charged in Trump's latest effort to punish rivals

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26. MaddowBlog-The one thing the Letitia James and James Comey indictments have in common

Both cases are brazenly and transparently corrupt, for the sake of brazen and transparent corruption.

The Letitia James and James Comey cases are two sides of the same coin:

Trump isn’t hiding his weaponization of the criminal justice system, he’s *flaunting* it, hoping to instill fear in critics and prosecutors.

The corruption is the point. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-10-10T13:10:10.529Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/one-thing-letitia-james-james-comey-indictments-common-rcna236837

Two weeks ago, when an unqualified Trump loyalist secured an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, it was widely characterized as the most obvious example in history of a politically motivated DOJ prosecution. Fourteen days later, we were reminded that it was really just the most obvious example of a politically motivated DOJ prosecution so far. MSNBC reported:

A Virginia grand jury on Thursday indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James on bank fraud charges following intense pressure from President Donald Trump to bring the case. ... James was charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution, according to the indictment.

The parallels between the James and Comey cases are striking.

In the latter, Trump spent months targeting the former FBI director and pressuring his team to bring criminal charges against his perceived foe. When the Trump-nominated U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia balked, and career prosecutors explained in detail and in writing that the evidence didn’t support charging Comey, the president expressed indifference to the rule of law......

As we’ve discussed, Trump and his confederates aren’t hiding their weaponization of the criminal justice system, they’re flaunting it. They want everyone to notice. They need other White House critics to be afraid, and other federal prosecutors to understand that they’ll soon be unemployed unless they play ball the way Halligan did.

The corruption is the point.

There might be half-hearted denials, issued with winks and nods, but by design, everyone should already be painfully aware of what is plainly true: The authoritarian crisis has arrived. We now live in a country where the president’s political opponents are prosecuted at his command.

As we’ve discussed, Trump and his confederates aren’t hiding their weaponization of the criminal justice system, they’re flaunting it. They want everyone to notice. They need other White House critics to be afraid, and other federal prosecutors to understand that they’ll soon be unemployed unless they play ball the way Halligan did.

Alan Rozenshtein, a former department official who now teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School, told The New York Times, “What we are seeing is the almost wholesale collapse of the Justice Department as an organization based on the rule of la[w/b].”