Trump is 'painting targets' for political retribution

In the military, the use of a laser to identify what other forces should attack is known as “painting the target.”

President-elect Donald Trump just painted his first target for political retribution. It happened when he claimed on “Meet the Press” that the House Jan. 6 committee had “deleted and destroyed a whole year and a half worth of testimony. I think those people committed a major crime.” By “those people” he meant the nine current and former Democratic and Republican House members on the bipartisan committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol.

Trump has no evidence that the committee destroyed any testimony or other records. In fact, the committee followed House protocols in archiving testimony and documents, which you can read online here to your heart’s content.

When NBC News interviewer Kristen Welker asked whether Trump was going to direct his attorney general and FBI director to send the committee members to jail, he first said, “no not at all,” but pointedly added, “I think that they’ll have to look at that.” Effectively, Trump told the chief law enforcement officers in his coming administration to investigate the Jan. 6 committee members for a crime that never happened. That’s how you paint a political target for retribution.

By one tally, Trump has made more than 100 threats since 2022 to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish individuals and organizations, from Vice President Kamala Harris to CBS and NBC to the district attorneys and members of grand juries who investigated him. An investigation alone would be payback because, even when a grand jury investigation ends without charges, it can devastate the target’s reputation and financial resources.

And lack of a plausible case will not be an obstacle if an unscrupulous federal prosecutor wants to indict a Trump political opponent. As the saying goes in legal circles, a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. This is why the Biden White House is discussing whether to offer preemptive pardons to the people on Trump’s enemies list.

The only limit on target selection will be Trump’s imagination, which is not much of a limit. Recall that he suggested that MSNBC anchor and former congressman Joe Scarborough killed a member of his staff in 2001 (she actually died after a fall caused by a heart condition). As part of his “birther” conspiracy, Trump insinuated that President Barack Obama was involved in the death of Hawaii State Health Director Loretta Fuddy (she died in a plane crash). He promoted the right-wing conspiracy theory that Bill and Hillary Clinton murdered Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster (it was ruled a suicide).

Federal criminal trial prosecutors — the ones who actually go into the courtrooms and face judges and juries — could pose an obstacle. Are they willing to risk their careers and reputations to satisfy Trump’s desire for payback by bringing indictments that lack any evidentiary foundation?

Legions of lawyers, from Watergate to Trump’s first administration, came to grief by putting personal ambition ahead of professional ethics. Rudy Giuliani, once the crusading U.S. Attorney and New York City mayor whose leadership on 9/11 made him a global figure, signed up to promote Trump’s 2020 election denial falsehoods. Today he is disbarred and bankrupt, his reputation is gone, and a federal judge just threatened him with imprisonment for, of all things, repeating election denial lies.

But cautionary tales like these never seem to deter ambitious underlings from stupid, destructive conduct while serving powerful figures. Sadly for many innocent people, if Trump wants political retribution, he is likely to find attorneys in his second administration willing to mete it out.

Gregory J. Wallance was a federal prosecutor in the Carter and Reagan administrations and a member of the ABSCAM prosecution team, which convicted a U.S. senator and six representatives of bribery. He is the author of “Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.”