Pundits who portray President Donald Trump's recent steps to secure federal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James as simply a response to prosecutorial efforts to hold Trump accountable after his first term have either forgotten what actually happened during Trump’s first term or are lying to their audiences. 

Trump, an authoritarian to his core, repeatedly sought the investigation, prosecution, and imprisonment of his political foes throughout his first four years in the White House. The fact that he's had more success leveling actual criminal charges at his enemies in his second term says far more about the sycophants and toadies with which he's populated the government than about his own demeanor, which has always been laser-focused on using the levers of power to punish his perceived enemies.

On September 20, Trump publicly posted a message to Attorney General Pam Bondi he had reportedly intended to be private, complaining that investigations he had demanded into Comey, James, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) had stalled. He said that he had fired a U.S. attorney who had defied White House demands for politicized prosecutions and recommended Lindsey Halligan, who was serving in the White House after working as Trump’s personal lawyer. Trump subsequently said he had installed Halligan in the vacated U.S. attorney slot, and she obtained charges against Comey and James from a grand jury. 

These indictments triggered denunciations from defenders of liberal democracy agog over his decimation of the rule of law and paroxysms of glee from MAGA foot soldiers. But a third category also emerged: conservative pundits who acknowledge that the indictments are politically motivated and improper, but nonetheless claim Democrats contributed to the situation by seeking charges against Trump between his terms in office.

Right-wing commentator Erick Erickson wrote in an October 10 piece that the Comey and James indictments were “absolutely politically motivated” and described them as “persecutions.” But he also claimed they were the flip side of the “law fare” he said the president had experienced. 

“Unfortunately for Democrats, some of whom are complaining that ‘Trump would do this anyway’ even without those prior indictments, we actually have a 45th presidential administration where no such things happened and that was also the presidency of Donald J. Trump,” Erickson added. “Two wrongs do not make a right, but Democrats did start this.” 

The editorial board of The Washington Post, recently reborn as a right-wing organ, likewise published an October 8 piece which described the Comey charges as “pathetically weak” but also complained: “Many Democrats still cannot see how their legal aggression against Trump during his four years out of power set the stage for the dangerous revenge tour on which he is now embarked.”

And in an October 13 piece at The Wall Street Journal, columnist Gerard Baker wrote that Trump “seems intent on repaying his enemies in kind” for purported Democratic “lawfare,” even as he warned that the James indictment “corrupts the legal process, corrodes public faith in civic institutions, and invites further leaps up the partisan warfare escalator.”

This argument aligns with Trump’s presentation of these prosecutions as retaliation for past Democratic efforts to hold him accountable. 

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he declared in his message to Bondi. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” 

Set aside the question of whether Democrats should have accepted that a president must be allowed to commit crimes with impunity — even attempting to overturn an election that he lost — because otherwise he might some day regain power and demand prosecutors indict his foes. 

It is simply not true that Trump began seeking to prosecute his political foes only in his second term, after his indictment by state and federal prosecutors during his years out of power. 

Trump’s first-term quest to lock up his political enemies

During Trump’s first term as president, he frequently sought “to deploy his power against his perceived enemies,” and after his “repeated public or private demands for them to be targeted by the government, they faced federal pressure of one kind or another,” including federal criminal probes, as The New York Times detailed in a September 2024 investigation.

The Times produced an extensive but by no means all-inclusive list of individuals who faced such treatment, noting that “there was no legal basis for the investigation of many” of the targets. In some cases, baseless but furious accusations aired in the right-wing media led to pressure from Trump for investigations into his political foes’ purported crimes — but when Trump-appointed federal prosecutors actually reviewed the allegations, they found them underwhelming and did not seek charges.

The list includes Comey, who was subjected to Justice Department investigations into whether he had leaked classified investigations and into his handling of the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. John Durham, appointed special counsel during the Trump administration, probed the latter subject for four years; he did not bring charges against Comey and failed to win jail time from any defendant. 

It is difficult to take seriously the argument that Trump sought an indictment against Comey only as retaliation for Democratic efforts to prosecute him when his attempts to indict Comey predates those efforts by years.

Other targets identified by the Times who were subjected to Justice Department investigations during Trump’s first term include:

• Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 election. “Federal prosecutors and a special counsel examined nearly all the issues and conspiracy theories Mr. Trump raised about Mrs. Clinton, her campaign and the Clinton Foundation, including the Clinton campaign’s role in gathering information during the 2016 campaign about ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia and providing it to the F.B.I.,” but Clinton “was never charged with anything.”
• John Kerry, former secretary of state under President Barack Obama. Justice Department officials in Washington referred an investigation into Kerry’s contacts with Iran after Trump publicly highlighted them, but U.S. attorney’s offices in New York and Maryland ultimately declined to charge him.
• Andrew McCabe, former deputy FBI director. “The Justice Department conducted a criminal investigation into whether Mr. McCabe had lied to the F.B.I. and Justice Department, and Mr. McCabe was investigated over whether he had leaked material to journalists,” but when prosecutors sought McCabe’s indictment, a grand jury declined to charge him.
• Peter Strzok, lead FBI agent on the Clinton and Russia probes. “Federal prosecutors and a special counsel investigated his handling of the Clinton and Russia investigations” but did not bring charges against him.
• John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser-turned critic. The Justice Department “opened a criminal investigation into whether Mr. Bolton had unlawfully disclosed classified information” in his 2020 book but did not bring charges against him (that probe has been revived in Trump’s second term).

Trump’s desire to prosecute his political enemies didn’t change between his first and second terms. In both terms, the FBI and Justice Department proved willing to respond to his public and private ire by looking into the purportedly criminal behavior. And in both terms, federal prosecutors eventually found that the evidence against his enemies was insufficient. 

What’s changed is that during Trump’s second term, when federal prosecutors declined to bring charges, he replaced the recalcitrant U.S. attorney with a crony who had no issue seeking indictments anyway. But explaining that reality won't keep you on the good side of the MAGA movement.