Trump Doesn’t Care If You Think He’s Corrupt
With the indictment of James Comey, Trump drops the fig leaf.
A shutdown nears, but negotiations are frozen in place. “The Trump administration is expecting a government shutdown come Wednesday and there are no current plans to negotiate with Democratic leadership, according to a senior White House official,” Politico reports:
“We’re going to extract maximum pain,” said the official, granted anonymity to discuss political strategy, adding that Democrats “will pay a huge price for this.”
Zero negotiation, zero concession—just give us your votes, or else. 2025! Happy Friday.
Why Keep Pretending?
by Andrew Egger
Watching the Justice Department slide greasily toward an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey over the past few days, the most striking thing was how little the president and his allies were bothering to hide what they were up to.
When Erik Siebert, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who had been supervising investigations into Comey and other Trump enemies, expressed doubts that the government had a case, Donald Trump didn’t have to say out loud and in public that he was firing him for just this reason. But he did. Siebert, Trump wrote on Truth Social, was “a Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job.” Comey and company, Trump added, were “guilty as hell,” and “we can’t delay any longer” in prosecuting them.
Trump didn’t have to frame the post as a series of explicit instructions to Attorney General Pam Bondi. But he did.
After firing Siebert, Trump didn’t have to appoint, as his replacement, the most transparently corrupt sort of candidate imaginable: one of his own former defense lawyers with zero prosecutorial experience. He could have easily tapped a MAGA lawyer with at least a patina of respectability, if for nothing more than plausible deniability. But he didn’t.
Getting someone in there who would do what he wanted absolutely, zero question, took top priority. In went Lindsey Halligan.
As the Justice Department moved toward filing charges, Donald Trump didn’t have to summon Pam Bondi to the White House for dinner Wednesday night, or to permit pictures of that dinner to be posted on social media—the pair of them and a few others beaming from under a beach umbrella in the newly paved Rose Garden. But he did.
It wasn’t long ago that Trump and his allies worked hard to brush accusations of corruption under a thick layer of disorienting counternarratives. Nothing was ever as it seemed, they used to insist: It was all witch hunts, or media bias, or Trump Derangement Syndrome. In this case, all that has fallen away, replaced by leering exultation in the application of power against Trump’s enemies. “JAMES COMEY IS A DIRTY COP,” Trump posted this morning. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” They want you to know they’re violating your precious norms. They relish the blowback.
For his part, Comey seems determined to fight. “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice,” he said in a video statement posted to social media last night. “I have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I am innocent, so let’s have a trial, and keep the faith.”
Continued faith in the system is an extraordinary thing for a person to express when they’re in the middle of getting trampled by it. But Comey is right to realize that Trump has not rotted every institution equally. The Justice Department may now serve both as the president’s personal weapon and as his messaging apparatus, but Trump still needs to get this act of retribution past the courts. He’s already been partially stymied: A Virginia grand jury declined to bring an indictment for one of the three charges the Justice Department initially sought.1
It might seem a small comfort, given how many other institutions have already bent the knee. (If Trump nominates Lindsey Halligan for the U.S. attorney position she is now filling in an acting capacity, does anyone think the Senate will put up much of a fight?) Still, that’s the genius of the jury system. Trump may have folded up the entire federal government, from Congress to the Justice Department, and put it in his pocket. But he can’t change the fact that Comey will ultimately answer only to a judge and to a jury of his peers.
Trump’s Conclave at Quantico
by William Kristol
Yesterday was a busy day inside the authoritarian project of the Trump administration.
The indictment of James Comey, as well as the filing of lawsuits trying to force states to hand over voter rolls and information to the administration, were further steps in the all-out weaponization of Donald Trump’s Justice Department.
The release of a new presidential memorandum, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” ordering federal law enforcement to investigate groups and individuals engaged in behavior of which the administration disapproves, marked another dystopian step in the broad effort to weaken organizations that could stand up to the president.
The news that the administration is preparing to use the likely government shutdown as an excuse to fire tens of thousands of government workers was yet more evidence of the relentless drive to purge and tighten its control of the federal workforce.
Even the announcement of a new wave of “national security” tariffs on items that have nothing to do with national security, such as kitchen cabinets and upholstered furniture, was a reminder of the effort to make large parts of the private sector dependent on Donald Trump’s good wishes.
And then, in the midst of all this authoritarian activity, the Washington Post broke the news of the extraordinary order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoning to Quantico next Tuesday “all general officers in command in grade O-7 through O-10”—in other words, the hundreds of generals and admirals in all the services, from all over the world, who are in command of troops.
Retired Army general Mark Hertling is of course right to say, in an article on the Bulwark homepage this morning, that this “is disruptive. It is expensive. And it is unnecessary.” It is unnecessary for any real and legitimate military or national security purpose.
But, as Hertling also suggests, strengthening our national defense may well not be the point of the gathering. The point is rather “the optics of power.” And the point is not the optics of American power. The point is not even the optics of Pete Hegseth’s power, much as Hegseth would relish that.
No, the point will be Donald Trump’s power.
Trump will surely be the headliner at Tuesday’s show. Hegseth will be the undercard. Trump may let Hegseth try to explain to the assembled officers changes in national security plans as outlined in the forthcoming National Defense Strategy and Global Posture Review. He may let Hegseth try to inspire the generals and admirals with pronouncements on lethality, or to cow them with denunciations of DEI. He may let Hegseth urge them to join in further crackdowns on press freedom in line with the September 18 memorandum requiring Pentagon correspondents to pledge they won’t gather any information—even unclassified—that hasn’t been expressly authorized for release.
Trump may even let Hegseth deliver the message about more politically motivated firings and promotions to come. As the Post reports:
The unusual travel order coincides with efforts by Hegseth to exert greater influence over who gets promoted to be a senior military officer, multiple officials told The Post. Even at the one- and two-star level, the secretary’s team is scrutinizing old relationships and what officials have said or posted on social media, as they determine whom to send forward for a higher rank or assignment.
Or Trump may choose to deliver some of these messages himself.
But the core point to be transmitted to the assembled generals, to all their troops watching at posts at home and abroad, and to the American people, will be this: This is Donald Trump’s military.
This is a pernicious and dangerous message.
What can be done to counteract it?
Members of Congress can speak up. So can retired military officers, former national security officials, and civic leaders. But our current general and flag officers also need to give serious consideration as to how they ought to conduct themselves in light of this planned show of Trumpian dominance. They need to reflect on what they should say before, during, and after this event, so as not to allow themselves to be used as props for political propaganda.
For example, either before departing for Quantico and/or upon returning, senior officers might want to remind the troops under their command of the meaning of the oath officers take upon commissioning, to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The generals and admirals might also want to share such a message in various ways—some subtle, some less so, all consistent with the basic role and obligations of senior military officers—with the general public.
One’s first reaction to this conclave at Quantico is that nothing good can come of it. That reaction may prove correct. But sometimes what is intended as an authoritarian propaganda exercise becomes the opposite—a kind of teaching moment for the cause of free and constitutional government. Is it too much to hope that Tuesday’s gathering could end up, contrary to the intentions of its organizers, serving such a purpose?
AROUND THE BULWARK
As Our Generals and Admirals Fly Home, Our Adversaries Watch and Wait… Couldn’t Hegseth’s in-person meeting of all flag officers have been a secure conference call, asks GEN. MARK HERTLING.
Animal Farm Never Gets Old… Orwell’s classic turns 80. CATHY YOUNG has a reminder that Orwell’s seminal satire was not just a warning about the Soviets.
Meet the Ex-FBI Podcaster Driving Kash Patel Nuts... He’s a conservative. He’s brash. And he’s tormenting the FBI director, reports WILL SOMMER in False Flag.
How Movies Can Better Prep Us for the AI Threat… NATE SOARES joins SONNY BUNCH on The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood to discuss his new book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies.
Does Russ Vought Scare You? The answer to that could determine whether the government stays open or not, reports JOE PERTICONE in Press Pass.
Chaos at DOJ
Joyce Vance of Civil Discourse joined Bill to discuss the chaos at the Department of Justice.
Quick Hits
FARM BAILOUT 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: “We’re going to take some of that tariff money that we made, we’re going to give it to our farmers, who are, for a little while, going to be hurt until the tariffs kick in to their benefit,” said Donald Trump. “So we’re going to make sure that our farmers are in great shape, because we’re taking in a lot of money.”
You’d be forgiven if you thought that was a throwback quote from 2018, the year Trump kicked off the $28-billion farm bailout designed to ease farmers’ pain over his trade war with China. In fact, he said it to reporters in the Oval Office yesterday. Hey, it worked so well the first time, right?
Farmers have been among the first to suffer in Donald Trump’s trade wars. Many of them, particularly soybean farmers, are highly reliant on exports. And since they’re usually seen as a dependable Trump voting bloc, countries like China have targeted them in retaliatory tariffs as an easy way to hit Trump where it hurts.
Last time around, Trump’s bombastic promises that farmers would hit a huge payday on the far side of tariff pain never came to fruition. Instead, he just kept shoveling more money at them every year, creating what Politico described in 2020 as “a culture of dependency.”
The idea that things are likely to go any better this time around is laughable. Trump’s tariffs have once again disrupted farmers’ ability to sell their produce freely around the world, all while he believes he’s opening new markets for them by bullying Japan into theoretically accepting American rice and Canada into theoretically accepting American dairy. Farmers will wait a long time for the tariffs to “kick in to their benefit.” In the meantime, we’ll all get to both pay the tariffs and pay the farmers.
WALTERS CRASHES OUT: In Republican politics these days, it’s frequently the case that the more shameless and insane a person’s behavior is, the likelier they are to attain the sort of notoriety that helps them build a national brand and promising future. It remains possible, however, to overshoot the mark—going repeatedly viral in such embarrassingly psychotic ways that even Republican voters start to see as a bit excessive.
The latest such flameout is Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s top education official, who announced late Wednesday night that he would resign from his post to take over a right-wing group dedicated to stamping out teachers unions. Since his 2023 election, Walters has repeatedly made news for his hamfisted attempts to turn Oklahoma schools into battlefields for MAGA culture war, as when he mandated that social-studies classes teach that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, demanded that every teacher in the state show their students a video of him denouncing the “radical left” and praying for Trump, and tried to put a Trump-branded “God Bless the USA” Bible (“the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!”) into classrooms.
Walters announced his resignation with characteristic bravado, promising to build “an army of teachers” to “destroy the teachers unions.” The new post was not, however, his top choice. Walters had reportedly been eyeing a bid for Oklahoma governor in 2026—but had received a wintry response from GOP voters in early polling.
MOVING THE GOALPOSTS: How are the Trump administration’s attempts to renegotiate all our trade relationships from the ground up with a host of unreasonable demands going? Not entirely well, it turns out. In many cases, countries may have agreed to an informal handshake deal, but many of the niggling details have not yet been hashed out. South Korea is a good example, as the Wall Street Journal notes:
President Trump’s trade deal with South Korea is on shaky ground, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick taking a tough line in talks as some Seoul officials privately argue to allies that the White House is moving the goal posts.
Lutnick, in recent conversations with South Korean officials, has discussed with Seoul the idea of slightly increasing the $350 billion they had previously guaranteed to the U.S. in July and suggested the final tally could get a bit closer to the $550 billion pledged by Japan, according to people familiar with the discussions, including an adviser to South Korea’s government. . . .
South Korea is closely watched because its trade accord closely mirrors that of neighboring Japan, which, along with the U.K., represents one of the few deals officially signed by both countries. A close ally of Washington and home to America’s largest overseas U.S. military base, South Korea was pegged by the Trump administration to be among the first major trade-deal targets, alongside Australia, India, Japan and the U.K.
But South Korean officials are also facing tougher political pressure at home to not give too much ground, with the public still irked over the immigration raid this month at a Hyundai Motor complex in Georgia that resulted in the arrest of more than 300 South Koreans. All but one of the detained Koreans have since returned home.
Washington’s ability to close a deal with Seoul could offer Trump much-needed momentum to complete others. But inaction could relieve negotiating pressure on trading partners, who have bristled at the steep asking price and await clarity on the legal issues swirling around Trump’s proposed tariffs.
Cheap Shots
Grand juries have long had a reputation for enormous deference to the charges prosecutors seek, but we’ve seen occasional exceptions in recent months, perhaps due to the preposterous nature of some of the charges these guys have been seeking.
ICYMI: Sarah and Ben Wittes discussed the coming charges against Comey on Bulwark Takes: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/breaking-trumps-doj-to-push-bogus
Just a paranoid thought on Hegseth’s conclave of all American generals and admirals: A staged Night of Long Knives presented as a Reichstag fire-type justification of a complete takeover? The commentary I’ve seen thus far focuses on the needless expense of this unjustified meeting. To me, the danger to our military command structure and the commanders themselves is paramount. Gathering all the top brass in one place at one time seems unbelievably foolhardy to me.