Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am
Speaker 2: your retribution. I am your retribution. Retribution was a key
Speaker 2: theme of President Donald Trump's return to the White House.
Speaker 2: Here he is in twenty twenty two speaking about the
Speaker 2: injustice he saw in the convictions of January sixth, right,
Speaker 2: and if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons
Speaker 2: because they are being treated so unfairly. And in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three talking about the injustice of the cases brought
Speaker 2: against him. But remember it's a Democrat charging his opponent.
Speaker 1: Nobody's ever seen anything like it.
Speaker 2: That means that if I win and somebody wants to
Speaker 2: run against me.
Speaker 1: I call my attorney general. I say, listen, indict him. Well,
Speaker 1: he hasn't done anything wrong that we know.
Speaker 2: I don't know up on income tax evasion. You'll figure
Speaker 2: it out.
Speaker 1: Going into his second term, it was an open question
Speaker 1: about how much time would be spent on policy versus
Speaker 1: how much time would be spent on revenge.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's senior national political reporter, Nancy Cook has covered Trump
Speaker 2: for a decade and interviewed him at mar A Lago
Speaker 2: a couple days before the first twenty twenty four presidential debate.
Speaker 1: I think there were people around him who wanted him
Speaker 1: to really build a big policy agenda and were steering
Speaker 1: him away from the retribution agenda. But what we've seen
Speaker 1: in office so far is that the retribution agenda is
Speaker 1: alive and well, and even more so than I think
Speaker 1: Republicans and even people close to Trump thought were possible.
Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Holder, and this is the big take from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News today on the show, how Trump is upending
Speaker 2: norms and expanding presidential powers to target his perceived political enemies.
Speaker 2: A major weapon in that fight the Department of Justice.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Nancy Cook says that when Trump took office in January,
Speaker 2: he made it clear that retribution wasn't just a campaign theme,
Speaker 2: it was a key part of his second term agenda.
Speaker 1: The tools at his disposal are quite large at this
Speaker 1: point because his administration is taking a very broad view
Speaker 1: of presidential executive power. And I would say that unlike
Speaker 1: the first term, this time they have really approached the
Speaker 1: retribution campaign with real military style precision, a lot of
Speaker 1: savviness about how to use the levers of the federal government.
Speaker 1: We saw him very quickly go after law firms that
Speaker 1: had done work for people he didn't like, using social
Speaker 1: media to go after people pulling security clearances, and then
Speaker 1: lately we've seen him go after specific people who have
Speaker 1: been personally critical of the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: The Department of Justice has indicted for FBI Director James Core.
Speaker 3: President Trump's former national security advisor, John Bolton, has just been.
Speaker 1: On the Attorney General Letitia James has been indicted.
Speaker 2: Part of what's enabled the Trump administration to pursue these
Speaker 2: targets is the cooperation of the Department of Justice.
Speaker 3: Pam Bondi said during her confirmation hearing to be Attorney
Speaker 3: generalist she wasn't going to have an enemies list at
Speaker 3: the Justice Department, but she doesn't need an enemy's list
Speaker 3: because she has been given Trump's enemies list.
Speaker 2: Chris Strome covers the Department of Justice for Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Across the board, Bondie and her top staff have been
Speaker 3: carrying out essentially a purge at the Justice Department, where
Speaker 3: hundreds of people, career prosecutors and staff have been fired
Speaker 3: or resigned, and in concert with that, they've been investigating
Speaker 3: and now prosecuting individuals who Trump has identified as being
Speaker 3: his political enemies. They are carrying out broad, sweeping investigations
Speaker 3: into what Trump and his allies have said is a
Speaker 3: grand conspiracy against Trump, dating back to twenty sixteen, starting
Speaker 3: with the Russian investigation, going into the Moler investigation, going
Speaker 3: into the investigation to Trump's efforts to overturn the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty election, and then the investigation into Trump retaining classified documents.
Speaker 2: It seems he doesn't view this as weaponizing the justice system.
Speaker 2: He views this as using the justice system in the
Speaker 2: same way that it was used against him. Is that fair.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One of the really interesting approaches that Trump and
Speaker 3: his allies are taking is to say that the Justice
Speaker 3: Department was weaponized against them and therefore or they're trying
Speaker 3: to correct the record. They're trying to prosecute people who
Speaker 3: carried out criminal actions up to and including treason against Trump.
Speaker 3: And if you look at the actions that are being
Speaker 3: taken now against Jim Comey or Letitia James or John Bolton,
Speaker 3: a lot of it is finding any kind of charge
Speaker 3: that they possibly can to hang onto somebody. It doesn't
Speaker 3: matter that these charges don't have anything to do with
Speaker 3: the grand conspiracy. All that matters is that these people
Speaker 3: are under investigation and now being prosecuted, and so Trump
Speaker 3: can claim that he's been right all along in saying
Speaker 3: that these people are dirty and these people are corrupt,
Speaker 3: and therefore they deserve to go to jail.
Speaker 2: Are there any mechanisms in place that are supposed to
Speaker 2: prevent the president from using the Department of Justice in
Speaker 2: this way.
Speaker 3: One of the really interesting lessons from the Trump era
Speaker 3: is that what we thought were rules and regulations governing
Speaker 3: how the Justice Department operated and how criminal prosecutions were
Speaker 3: conducted actually don't really exist. What Trump has exposed is
Speaker 3: that we've been relying on a series of norms and
Speaker 3: traditions where the Justice Department would willingly have a distance
Speaker 3: and an independence from the administration. Multiple Attorney generals and
Speaker 3: Justice Department officials across administrations have enforced policies and rules
Speaker 3: that would separate the Justice Department from the White House
Speaker 3: when it came to conducting investigations and making decisions about prosecutions.
Speaker 3: Trump has obliterated that he's come in with a wrecking
Speaker 3: ball and essentially has declared himself as being the chief
Speaker 3: law enforcement officer of the country and the person who
Speaker 3: can make decisions about who should be prosecuted and even
Speaker 3: how they can be prosecuted.
Speaker 2: Nancy Cooke says that change in norms is something you
Speaker 2: can actually see.
Speaker 1: One thing that has struck me just visually about Trump
Speaker 1: in his second term is Pam Bondy is over in
Speaker 1: the Oval Office a lot of public events. I covered
Speaker 1: the first Trump term, I covered two years of Biden's
Speaker 1: White House, Like I don't remember Merrick Garland being over
Speaker 1: in the Oval Office all the time for events. Pam
Speaker 1: Bondy is over there, often standing behind Trump as he
Speaker 1: makes pronouncements, standing there with other officials. I would say
Speaker 1: they're upending a lot of the legal agencies, including the FBI,
Speaker 1: the CIA, But it's like she is visually aligned with
Speaker 1: the President in these photo ops all the time as well.
Speaker 2: The distance and independence the White House has traditionally kept
Speaker 2: from the Department of Justice is a modern phenomenon that
Speaker 2: only dates back to the aftermath of Richard Nixon's presidency
Speaker 2: and the Watergate scandal.
Speaker 3: Nixon tried to use the powers of the presidency in
Speaker 3: order to invest to Gate his political enemies, and Nixon
Speaker 3: tried to actually tell the Justice Department how to carry
Speaker 3: out investigations. Members of Congress actually stood up to the
Speaker 3: president and determined that the actions that were being taken
Speaker 3: were offensive, that there had to be certain guardrails put
Speaker 3: in place. And so that's when you began to see
Speaker 3: laws that were actually passed, such as creating inspector generals
Speaker 3: within these agencies. But during this Trump administration, those safeguards
Speaker 3: have just been knocked down. Trump fired a bunch of
Speaker 3: inspector generals. He has declared that he can do what
Speaker 3: he wants with the Justice Department, and you're not seeing
Speaker 3: the same pushback in Congress that you did forty years ago.
Speaker 2: Coming up, what's next in the cases of former FBI
Speaker 2: director James Comey and New York's Attorney General Letitia James,
Speaker 2: And what kind of new precedent Trump's norm breaking dj
Speaker 2: could set. It's been over half a century since Nixon's
Speaker 2: Watergate scandal pushed Congress to create firmer boundaries between the
Speaker 2: Department of Justice and the president, but now Trump has
Speaker 2: started breaking them. Critics have said that many of the
Speaker 2: indictments Trump's DOJ has opened so far are motivated by
Speaker 2: the president's quest for revenge. Trump doesn't see it that way.
Speaker 2: It's about Justice's.
Speaker 1: Brilliant, It's not revenge.
Speaker 2: In late September, he was asked about the indictment of
Speaker 2: former FBI director James Comy as he boarded Air Force one.
Speaker 2: Comy was charged with making a false statement and obstructing
Speaker 2: a congressional proceeding related to his twenty twenty testimony at
Speaker 2: a Senate Judiciary hearing. He's pleaded not guilty. So it's
Speaker 2: also about the fact that you can't let this go on.
Speaker 2: They are sick, radical left people and they can't get
Speaker 2: away with it and call me was one of the people.
Speaker 2: He wasn't the biggest. Kmy first got on Trump's bad
Speaker 2: side back in twenty sixteen, when Komy opened an investigation
Speaker 2: into alleged ties between Trump's first presidential campaign and Russia.
Speaker 3: That was the original Sin.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg DOJ reporter Chris Strom.
Speaker 3: As the investigation continued, Trump fired Komy in May of
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, and Komy then leaked some of his written
Speaker 3: memos about his interactions with Trump and the public. Revelations
Speaker 3: were very damaging to Trump and actually led the Justice
Speaker 3: Department at that time to a point Special Counsel Moler
Speaker 3: to carry on the Russia investigation, and ever since then,
Speaker 3: Trump has vilified Komy and called for his prosecution.
Speaker 2: So it was something he couldn't get done in his
Speaker 2: first term and became a big priority and part of
Speaker 2: how he shaped the Justice Department in his second term.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was not getting the results he wanted during
Speaker 3: the beginning of his second administration, and so he put
Speaker 3: out a very public demand on social media, essentially in
Speaker 3: order to Bondie, demanding that Comy and others like Letitia
Speaker 3: James be prosecuted. And it was only days later that
Speaker 3: the White House installed one of Trump's White House aides,
Speaker 3: Lindsay Halligan, who Trump abruptly put in as the interim
Speaker 3: Use Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. And just
Speaker 3: days after she was inserted into that position, she brought
Speaker 3: an indictment against James Comy, and then a couple weeks later,
Speaker 3: she brought an indictment against Letitia James.
Speaker 2: James had launched a federal civil fraud against Trump and
Speaker 2: the Trump Organization in twenty twenty two and one in October,
Speaker 2: she was charged with mortgage occupancy fraud and for making
Speaker 2: false statements to a financial institution. She's also pleaded not guilty.
Speaker 3: The career prosecutors working in the Easter District of Virginia
Speaker 3: had reached a decision that there was no justification to
Speaker 3: bring these cases against Kome and James and that most
Speaker 3: likely these cases would fail in court.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering how Trump, being very open about his dislike
Speaker 2: of Komy might play into this case, because I know
Speaker 2: Komy has asked for the charges against him to be dismissed,
Speaker 2: arguing that he is being personally targeted.
Speaker 3: Komy has already filed a motion to say that the
Speaker 3: indictment against him should be dismissed because it represents an
Speaker 3: addictive and selective prosecution, and his legal team has cited
Speaker 3: the multitude of times that Trump has disparaged Komye or
Speaker 3: called for his prosecution. These motions have already been made,
Speaker 3: They're under consideration by the judge. And trying to succeed
Speaker 3: with emotion claiming vindictive and selective prosecutions very difficult. A
Speaker 3: lot of defendants do it but don't have success. Komy
Speaker 3: might be the poster child for a case that can
Speaker 3: actually succeed, and if Comy's motion succeeds, it most likely
Speaker 3: will also be replicated by Letitia James in her motion
Speaker 3: and others who are still to come.
Speaker 2: Comy and James, for their part, are both determined to
Speaker 2: fight their charges in court. Their trials are set for January,
Speaker 2: and over the past year, several DOJ attorneys have resigned
Speaker 2: in protest over directives they were given in other investigations.
Speaker 2: But Chris says Trump's DOJ is facing resistance that's much
Speaker 2: more muted than it was in the Nixon era.
Speaker 3: Congress has largely been absent. I mean Democrats don't have
Speaker 3: any power. They don't control either the House or the Senate,
Speaker 3: and so in order to have oversight hearings or to
Speaker 3: demand information from the administration or issue subpoenas that can
Speaker 3: only come from the Republican majority, and they're not doing it.
Speaker 3: You do have individuals inside agencies such as the Justice
Speaker 3: Department that are questioning what the White House and what
Speaker 3: Trump are doing. There have been some examples where even
Speaker 3: Attorney General Bondie and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche have
Speaker 3: resisted certain steps that Trump and his allies want the
Speaker 3: Justice Department to take. There's still some open questions about
Speaker 3: what the Justice Department is going to do with some
Speaker 3: of these cases that they haven't been fully on board
Speaker 3: with what Trump has been demanding that they do.
Speaker 2: I'm curious about long term precedent here. It's something that
Speaker 2: comes up a lot when we talk about the way
Speaker 2: that Trump is operating as president. Is it possible and
Speaker 2: is it a concern that future US leaders, Republican or
Speaker 2: Democrat could turn around and do the same thing to
Speaker 2: their political opponents or use the DOJ to similar ends.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean that's one of the concerns that has
Speaker 3: been raised is that as Trump breaks down the walls
Speaker 3: that have existed between the Justice Department and the White House,
Speaker 3: he's setting a new precedent that any administration going forward
Speaker 3: can use, and there's really nothing to stop that from happening,
Speaker 3: short of either a public outcry that becomes so overwhelming
Speaker 3: or congressional resistance. I think for Trump and his allies,
Speaker 3: it's not even a matter of getting a conviction. It's
Speaker 3: the process of indicting these individuals and forcing them to
Speaker 3: have to get legal representation and go through court processes.
Speaker 3: The process is the punishment, not just.
Speaker 1: The process as the punishment, but also the message that
Speaker 1: it sends to other people.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's senior national political reporter Nancy Cook.
Speaker 1: Again, if you speak out, there is a hugorist that
Speaker 1: will go after you. And I think that you're seeing
Speaker 1: in Washington, DC a lot of self censorship, you know,
Speaker 1: with like maybe lawyers not speaking out as much, or
Speaker 1: former Trump officials who were very vocal and on TV
Speaker 1: a lot going quieter. And so I do think that
Speaker 1: it's it's the message that you know, you just keep
Speaker 1: it to yourself.
Speaker 2: In late September, Trump was asked who was next on
Speaker 2: his list after the Coomy indictment, and he said he
Speaker 2: isn't done, not a list, but I think there'll be others.
Speaker 2: The next wave of indictments could come as soon as January,
Speaker 2: when a federal grand jury convenes in Florida. The Trump's
Speaker 2: allies expect will investigate what they believe has been a
Speaker 2: long running conspiracy by former government officials to undermine Trump.
Speaker 3: Trump has even said that the Justice Department needs to
Speaker 3: take a look at Mayork Garland, Chris Ray, Lisa Monico,
Speaker 3: Jack Smith. These were all the key officials in charge
Speaker 3: of investigations that were against Trump. So that's the next
Speaker 3: phase of the retribution campaign that I'm really paying attention
Speaker 3: to right now in which individuals will get swept up
Speaker 3: into that.
Speaker 1: And also you have to keep in mind we're only
Speaker 1: in year one of his four years second term, so
Speaker 1: it's very unclear to me what does the Justice Department
Speaker 1: look like at the end of.
Speaker 2: This This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm
Speaker 2: Sarah Holder. To get more from The Big Take and
Speaker 2: unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today
Speaker 2: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast offer. If you liked
Speaker 2: this episode, make sure to follow and review The Big
Speaker 2: Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps people find
Speaker 2: the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.