The Trump administration’s purge of federal prosecutors entered a new stage last week with the forced resignation of Erik Siebert, the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Several reports indicate that Siebert resigned on Friday after resisting demands from the White House to bring politically motivated charges in a mortgage fraud probe against New York Attorney General Letitia James.
For years, James has been a particular target of Trump’s wrath because she prosecuted him and his businesses in New York, winning a massive civil fraud case that forced the Trump Organization to pay millions in penalties. This exposure of Trump’s decades-long practice of inflating property values to secure loans and deflating them to evade taxes struck at the core of his image as a “successful businessman.”
After Siebert resigned Friday, Trump claimed in social media posts that he had in fact fired him. Siebert’s removal comes mere months after he was nominated by Trump for the position. The Republican lawyer was supported by Virginia’s Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin. He was also vetted by Virginia’s Democratic Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, who returned their “blue slips” allowing his nomination to move forward in the Senate.
In social media posts on Saturday, Trump nominated Lindsey Halligan, a 35-year-old insurance lawyer and a loyal political operative, for the permanent position. Writing on Truth Social Trump praised Halligan as someone who,
...has worked with me for a long time, including in the winning fight against the Weaponization of our Justice System by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats, which she witnessed firsthand when she stood up for my rights during the Unconstitutional and UnAmerican raid on my home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
In an interview with the Washington Post earlier this year, Halligan said she first joined Trump’s legal team in early 2022. Soon thereafter the former Miss Colorado beauty pageant contestant began defending Trump regularly on Fox News.
Since Trump’s return to Washington, Halligan has been on White House staff, in close proximity to the president. In a March 27, executive order Trump tasked Halligan with removing “improper ideology” from Smithsonian institutions.
Until Halligan is confirmed by the Senate, Attorney General Pam Bondi named Mary “Maggie” Clearly, a Republican lawyer from Culpeper, Virginia as interim attorney.
In a follow-up post on Saturday after naming Halligan, Trump threatened current attorney general Bondi.
“Pam,” Trump wrote,
I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” Then we almost put in a Democrat-supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard.
Trump then praised Halligan and called on Bondi to bring charges against the three he had named, former FBI Director James Comey, Senator Adam Schiff (California-Democrat) and New York Attorney General James:
We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT
For years Trump has denounced the supposed “weaponization” of the DOJ under Biden, echoed by the Republican Party and its media auxiliaries. In fact, the opposite was the case. Far from targeting Trump, the Biden administration and Democratic Party shielded him and his accomplices. Prosecutions were delayed, narrowed, or blocked outright. Nearly three years passed before even limited charges were filed over the January 6 coup attempt.
Most investigations into Trump after the failed coup were confined to secondary questions—mishandling classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, or hush money paid to a pornstar—rather than the central crime of attempting to overturn the Constitution and seize power.
The refusal to prosecute Trump was not accidental on the part of Biden or his Attorney General Merrick Garland. The Democrats feared that a serious exposure and prosecution of Trump’s coup conspiracy would reveal the complicity of broad sections of the ruling class and institutions of capitalist rule in the coup, including the military, the police, the Supreme Court and the Republican Party. Above all, they feared the consequences of unleashing mass popular opposition.
The “hands-off” approach to Trump was one more expression of the Democrats’ function as a party of Wall Street and imperialism.
By contrast, Trump is carrying out the genuine weaponization of the Justice Department: installing loyalists, removing any official who resists, demanding prosecutions of political opponents on fraudulent grounds and quashing investigations into political allies and cronies.
Weekend press reports claimed that Trump’s current “border czar” Tom Homan accepted a $50,000 bribe from undercover agents posing as contractors seeking government business tied to the mass deportation operation. The meeting, which was apparently recorded on video, happened in September 2024.
According to report, before accepting the bribe, Homan indicated to the undercover agents that he could help them win contracts. Prosecutors considered charges of bribery, conspiracy and fraud.
Unsurprisingly, once Trump returned to the White House the investigation into Homan was shut down. In a statement in response to reporting from MSNBC, FBI director and Trump stooge, Kash Patel wrote, “This matter originated under the previous administration” and claimed there was “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”
MSNBC reported that the investigation into Homan was quickly shut down after the case was reviewed by former acting Deputy Attorney General, and now federal judge Emil Bove III. Bove reportedly denounced the investigation as a “deep state” operation.
During his brief stint at the Department of Justice, Bove instructed government immigration lawyers that deportation flights under the Alien Enemies Act would proceed “no matter what,” even if federal judges tried to block them—and allegedly told them to respond to court orders with a “fuck you.”
Bove also oversaw the dropping of corruption charges against New York City’s mayor Eric Adams in exchange for his cooperation with the administration’s mass deportation regime.
Homan’s bribery scandal underscores the thoroughly corrupt character of the entire Trump administration, which personifies the criminality of the financial oligarchy as a whole. While Trump himself rakes in billions through crypto schemes, his subordinates pocket cash bribes in exchange for influence over government contracts.