Lawfare

E. Jean Carroll gets to keep her money. The Supreme Court has declined to review the $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict she won in federal court against Donald Trump. Carroll walks away enriched. Her financier – Reid Hoffman, a wealthy Democratic donor and LinkedIn co-founder who bankrolled the litigation – got his money’s worth too. But the rest of us are much poorer. We are left with a badly damaged legal system and a clarifying, disturbing lesson about American politics: lawfare works. Whether you love Donald Trump or loathe him, the wave of civil and criminal litigation targeting him over the past several years should alarm you.

United States District Court Judge Cameron M. Currie, sitting by designation in the Eastern District of Virginia, yesterday dismissed the federal indictments against former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James. At the crux of the court order is the judge’s finding that President Donald J. Trump’s administration unlawfully appointed Lindsey Halligan, the US Attorney who signed the Comey and James indictments. Taking the now familiar TDS cheap shot, the court order opens with a description of the US Attorney as “a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience.” Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi appointed Ms.

Let the retribution begin. A federal grand jury in the eastern district of Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, has indicted former FBI director James Comey for lying to Congress about leaking classified information to the press. During his four years at the FBI, Comey became a linchpin of the movement among Democrats in Congress and their legacy press supporters to oust Donald Trump during his first term. Trump never forgives and he never forgets.

"My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump," says James Comey, the former FBI director, in a video statement on – naturally – Bluesky. "We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either." The Resistance is strong in that one. To a dwindling number of hardcore NeverTrumpers, Comey is a sort of godfather figure. He seems to love the attention, too. He wrote a self-aggrandizing memoir called A Higher Loyalty, about his fall-out with Donald Trump and the start of the Trump-Russia, Russia, Russia business. Earlier this year, moreover, he was even accused of elliptically threatening Trump’s life, when he posted and then deleted on Instagram an image showing the numbers "86 47" written in seashells on a beach.

A buzzword of the moment is “lawfare.” What is lawfare? It’s one of those portmanteau words that Lewis Carroll taught us about. A combination of “law” and “warfare,” “lawfare” is distinctly less clever an invention than “chortle” – one of Carroll’s coinages, my beamish boy, which combines the words “chuckle” and “snort.” The word “lawfare” apparently dates back to the late 1950s, though the phenomenon – using and abusing the law in order to conduct political warfare – has come into its own only in the past couple of decades. The fact that there is now an eponymous website devoted to the subject is but one patent of its currency.

Too long, didn’t read, but late last week Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard proclaimed that she had in her possession a full ream of intel conclusively proving that the Obama Administration, in its 11th hour, prepared a fusillade of fake evidence designed to defame President Trump as an agent and dupe of the Russian Government. Trump, somewhat on his heels with the Epstein Files scandal, began screeching online about the Russia Hoax. Today he posted a meme showing various Obama Administration figures, including Obama himself, wearing orange prison jumpsuits, holding up cards with their names on them, with the logo “THE SHADY BUNCH” embossed on top. Very hip, Mr. President, retweet a Beverly Hillbillies joke next. “HOW DID SAMANTHA POWER MAKE ALL THAT MONEY???

One of the outcomes of November’s election is that Americans can once again trust their own eyes and call out the obvious when they see it. President Biden long ago lost the mental acuity to serve as the nation’s chief executive. Progressive causes like climate change, diversity hiring and transgender men participating in women’s sports are ridiculous. And highly dubious prosecutions seemingly launched as political weapons are exactly what they appear to be. In a Friday morning double-header Americans witnessed in real time the crumbling of the last two vestiges of the lawfare campaign against former and future president Donald Trump. What were once touted as a dream of the left to bring down a king will at best be reduced to obscure footnotes in the annals of history.

The effort to bankrupt, disgrace and banish Donald J. Trump to a jail cell in Riker’s Island has instead helped pave his road right back to the Oval Office. The unprecedented abuse of the American legal system fueled plenty of cable news coverage, but it also alienated the electorate. As with President Joe Biden’s mental decline, voters trusted their own eyes over the tale being told on their screens and delivered a decisive verdict against an eight-year politically-motivated lawfare campaign — exit polls showed that Trump voters were more likely to say democracy was under threat.

Welcome to Thunderdome. Well, we finally have it! A list of contestants for Donald Trump’s long-anticipated veepstakes, designed to play out live and on camera in the coming month before the Republican convention — you just know he’s going to make us all wait for the reveal. There are a few surprises in omissions and additions, but not many. Now, this being Trump, he could always swerve at the last minute and have a surprise entry... so Tulsi Gabbard fans, all hope is not lost. But here are the candidates we know for now: Governor Doug Burgum (ND) Ben Carson, former HUD secretary Senator Tom Cotton (Ark.) Representative Byron Donalds (Fla.) Senator Marco Rubio (Fla.) Senator Tim Scott (S.C.) Representative Elise Stefanik (N.Y.