Donald Trump’s vow to turn the tables on the New York officials who put him on trial, including Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and state Attorney General Letitia James, has been brought to bear by newly sworn-in Attorney General Pam Bondi with her announcement of a “weaponization” task force to investigate his claims of political persecution.
In a memo Wednesday, Bondi said she would direct a new Department of Justice “weaponization working group” to review “federal cooperation” in the cases brought against Trump after his first term, including cases brought by James and Bragg that resulted in his historic criminal conviction and around half a billion dollars in fines.
Beyond potential legal ramifications, experts said the task force’s existence could have a chilling effect on the work of both offices.
“It’s a world of misery that law enforcement can rain down on people even without charging them. They can subpoena their bank accounts and their phone records. They can talk to all their friends and ask them questions and insinuate wrongdoing,” said one former prosecutor now in private practice who asked to speak on background.
“It’s a terrible situation to be in, and if someone is an unethical prosecutor or FBI agent, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do that,” they added. “If your aim is to have a chilling effect on legitimate honest prosecutions, this is a great way to go about it.”
Representatives for Bragg and James declined to comment on the announcement Thursday. Sources previously told the Daily News that the DA began consulting attorneys about possibly becoming a target after Trump’s election.
Trump has tapped his former intelligence official and conspiracy theorist Kash Patel to be his FBI director. Patel, who if he’s approved by the Senate could potentially direct agents to criminally investigate Trump’s perceived enemies, was highly critical of the legal matters against him. When the hush money case went on trial, he called for an investigation “and possible prosecutions” into those involved and “a full blown audit” of Bragg’s office.
Though Bondi swore during her confirmation hearings that she wouldn’t focus on politically motivated investigations, her memo, for the most part, formalized language included in countless statements and Truth Social posts by Trump throughout his myriad legal battles, in which he repeatedly cast himself as a victim of the Biden administration’s “weaponized“ DOJ.
“No one who has acted with a righteous spirit and just intentions has any cause for concern about efforts to root out corruption and weaponization,” Bondi’s memo read. “On the other hand, the Department of Justice will not tolerate abuses of the criminal justice process, coercive behavior, or other forms of misconduct.”
Duncan Levin, the former chief of the Manhattan DA’s asset forfeiture division and a former federal prosecutor, said the DOJ review could strain the collaborative relationships between local and federal prosecutors.
“The DA’s office and DOJ have historically worked hand in hand to reduce crime in many ways, from task forces to joint prosecutions and investigations. This federal overreach will lead to decreased trust and cooperation between the two entities,“ Levin said. “This move could be seen as a direct and unwelcome challenge to their autonomy.”
Trump faced four criminal indictments after leaving office. The only one making it to trial brought by Bragg — the cover-up of hush money payments to women after Trump first won the White House. A jury found him guilty in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, which he’s appealing.
He has repeatedly claimed that Bragg was forced to bring a case he didn’t believe in and that one of the line prosecutors who tried the case, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo, was a Biden plant based on his past employment at the DOJ. Former AG Merrick Garland swore under oath that he did not “dispatch Colangelo anywhere,“ and said a review found no evidence of coordination, but Trump was unconvinced.
“You have a gentleman sitting right there from the DOJ,“ he said at his sentencing on Jan. 10, singling Colangelo out in the courtroom. “He went around and did what he had to do.“
In James’ civil fraud case, Trump and his former top executives at the Trump Organization were found liable for engaging in sweeping business fraud in late 2023 and early 2024 for habitually manipulating the value of his real estate assets to banks and lenders for years, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. They were ordered to pay around $455 million, owed mainly by Trump, which he is appealing.
James has repeatedly underscored that her investigation was launched after Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, levied the criminal allegations under oath before Congress in 2019.
Bondi’s memo said her office would lead the task force with support from the deputy AG and other DOJ offices. Trump has tapped his lead attorneys at the hush money trial, Emil Bove and Todd Blanche, as numbers two and three at the DOJ, with Bove now overseeing the department’s day-to-day functioning pending Blanche’s confirmation.
Among other matters, the memo also directed an examination of “weaponization“ by special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the abandoned federal cases against Trump, accusing him of hoarding and mishandling highly sensitive classified documents after leaving office and inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Norm Eisen, who served as ethics czar in the Obama administration and testified about the weaponization of government Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee, told The News the task force was an example of “gross misconduct.”
“This is nothing other than an act of retribution against government servants who did their job in response to the insurrection,“ Eisen said. “Coming on top of Trump pardoning the insurrectionists including those who violently assaulted police, and of firing FBI and DOJ personnel who are needed to fight crime, this is more proof that Donald Trump is the most pro-criminal president in our history.”
The former prosecutor who spoke on background said the memo’s message about honest prosecutors not needing to worry was hard to square with the recent firings of dozens of investigators who probed the insurrection.
“You can’t battle so-called weaponization by weaponizing the levers of the DOJ against people who are doing their job,“ they said. “I don’t know if she’s trying to be ironic after the firing of the prosecutors who worked on the Jan. 6 cases. Why shouldn’t every AUSA in the country be thinking, ‘If I get involved in a controversial case, is the next president just going to fire me?‘”