Trump's 'vindictive' prosecutions of his enemies put his inner circle in a bind: analysis
A major legal bombshell came down on Thursday afternoon, October 16 when a grand jury indicted former National Security Adviser John Bolton on 18 federal criminal charges for alleged mishandling of classified government documents — which, in 2023 and 2024, was the focus of one of then-special counsel Jack Smith's two cases against Donald Trump.
The Bolton indictment follows federal indictments of two other Trump foes: New York State Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. And legal experts fear that more indictments of Trump adversaries are on the way.
In an op-ed published by the i Paper in the U.K. on October 17, columnist James Ball stresses that Trump's thirst for revenge is causing major stress to Republicans in his inner circle.
"Now, Trump is back in the White House, he wants payback — and he's demanding his Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and other senior officials jail his opponents for him," Ball explains. "By longstanding tradition, elected politicians are not supposed to interfere in individual cases."
"Trump is not just interfering in them, he is demanding prosecutions openly, in public, and daring anyone to speak out against it," he continued. "Bondi, who acted as Trump's personal lawyer during his impeachment before becoming attorney general, is not trying to defend the independence of her office. Instead, she and her team are trying to do his dirty work, but they're having difficulties, not least because America is still — for now, at least — a nation of laws.
Trump, according to Ball, "wants results" with Bolton, James and Comey — and the challenge for his allies, Ball observes, is that he either "doesn’t understand how the law works" or "simply doesn't care."
"Trump is a vindictive man and shows no signs of mercy," Ball argues. "For now, America's legal system is holding up, and Trump has not managed to smash it entirely. That leaves his officials ground-down between them. You could almost feel sorry for them — if it wasn't exactly what they had signed up for."
James Ball's full op-ed for the i Paper is available at this link.
