Trump ran on a promise of revenge. He's making good on it
[August 25, 2025]
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI
Donald Trump ran on a promise to use the powers of the government for
revenge against those he believed wronged him. He now appears to be
fulfilling that campaign promise while threatening to expand his powers
well beyond Washington.
On Friday, the FBI searched the home of John Bolton, Trump’s first-term
national security adviser-turned-critic, who last week in an interview
called the administration “the retribution presidency.”
Trump's team has opened investigations of Democrat Letitia James, the
New York attorney general who sued Trump’s company over alleged fraud
for falsifying records, and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who as a
congressman led Trump's first impeachment. The Republican administration
has charged Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., over her actions at an
immigration protest in Newark, New Jersey, after arresting Mayor Ras
Baraka, also a Democrat. Under investigation, too, is former New York
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a candidate for New York City mayor.
Trump has directed prosecutors to investigate two other members of his
first administration: Miles Taylor, who wrote a book warning of what he
said were Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, and Chris Krebs, who earned
the president’s wrath for assuring voters that the 2020 election, which
Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, was secure.
The actions look like the payback Trump said he would pursue after being
hit with four separate sets of criminal charges during his four years
out of office. Those included an indictment for his effort to overturn
the 2020 election that was gutted by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said
presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts while
in office.
“Joe Biden weaponized his administration to target political opponents –
most famously, President Trump," Abigail Jackson, a White House
spokeswoman, said Saturday. Trump, she said, "is restoring law and
order.”
In addition to making good on his promises of retribution, Trump has
deployed the military into American cities to fight crime or help with
immigration arrests. He has sent thousands of National Guard troops and
federal law enforcement officers to patrol the streets in the nation's
capital, after activating the Guard and Marines in Los Angeles earlier
this year.
Taken together, the actions have alarmed Democrats and others who fear
Trump is wielding the authority of his office to intimidate his
political opponents and consolidate power in a way that is unprecedented
in American history.
“You combine the threat of prosecution with armed troops in the
streets,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth
College. “The picture is pretty clear for anyone who’s read a history
book what kind of administration we’re dealing with.”
Past election investigations are a Trump focus
Trump began his second term by pardoning more than 1,500 people who were
convicted of crimes during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
His Justice Department, meanwhile, has fired some federal prosecutors
who had pursued those cases. Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered a grand
jury to look into the origins of the investigation of his 2016
campaign’s ties with Russia, and Trump has called on her department to
investigate former Democratic President Barack Obama.
The government's watchdog agency has opened an investigation into Jack
Smith, the special prosecutor who investigated Trump's efforts to
overturn the 2020 election results and the classified documents stashed
at his Florida estate. Those cases were among several that dogged Trump
in the years between his presidential terms, including the New York
fraud case and charges for election interference in Georgia brought by
the Democratic prosecutor in Fulton County.
All those investigations led him to claim that Democrats had weaponized
the government against him.
“It is amazing to me the number of people the Trump administration has
gone after, all of whom are identified by the fact that they
investigated or criticized Trump in one way or another,” said Stephen
Saltzburg, a former Justice Department official who is a George
Washington University law professor.
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People protest against President Donald Trump's use of federal law
enforcement and National Guard troops in the city during a march in
downtown Columbia Heights neighborhood in Washington, Friday, Aug.
22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
On Friday, Trump used governmental powers in other ways to further
his goals. He announced that Chicago could be the next city subject
to military deployments.
And after his housing director alleged that one of the governors of
the independent Federal Reserve had committed mortgage fraud, Trump
demanded she resign or be fired. He took to his social platform on
Saturday to highlight the claims, as he tries to wrest control of
the central bank.
Trump sees himself as the ‘chief law enforcement officer’
Vice President JD Vance denied in a television interview that Bolton
was being targeted because of his criticism of Trump.
“If there’s no crime here, we’re not going to prosecute it,” Vance
told NBC's “Meet the Press” on Friday.
Trump said he told his staff not to inform him about the Bolton
search ahead of time, but he stressed that he has authority over all
prosecutions.
“I could know about it. I could be the one starting it,” the
president told reporters. “I’m actually the chief law enforcement
officer.”
Bolton occupies a special place in the ranks of Trump critics. The
longtime GOP foreign policy hawk wrote a book published in 2020,
after Trump had fired him the year before. The first Trump
administration sued to block the book's release and opened a grand
jury investigation, both of which were halted by the Biden
administration.
Bolton landed on a list of 60 former officials drawn up by now-FBI
Director Kash Patel that he portrayed as a tally of the “Executive
Branch Deep State.” Critics warned it was an “enemies list.” When
Trump returned to office in January, his administration revoked the
security detail that had been assigned to Bolton, who faced Iranian
assassination threats.
The FBI is now investigating Bolton for potentially mishandling
classified information, according to a person familiar with the
matter who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.
In contrast, Trump condemned the FBI’s search of his own Mar-a-Lago
resort in 2022.
Retribution is wide-ranging, from judges to the military
Trump has also targeted institutions that have defied him.
The president issued orders barring several law firms that were
involved in litigation against him or his allies, or had hired his
opponents, from doing business with the federal government. Trump
cut deals with several other firms to do free legal work rather than
face penalties. He has targeted universities for funding cuts if
they do not follow his administration’s directives.
His administration filed a judicial misconduct complaint against a
judge who ruled that Trump officials likely committed criminal
contempt by ignoring his directive to turn around planes carrying
people being sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The actions are among steps that seem to be intensifying. Trump's
defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has fired several military leaders
perceived to be critics of the president or not sufficiently loyal,
and earlier this week the administration revoked the security
clearances of about three dozen current and former national security
officials.
“It’s what he promised,” said Justin Levitt, a former Justice
Department official and Biden White House staffer who is a law
professor at Loyola Marymount University. “It’s what bullies do when
no one tells them ‘No.’”
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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to
this report.
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