OPINION:
This week, disgraced former FBI Director James B. Comey pleaded not guilty to two charges: lying to Congress and obstruction of Congress.
“I just fear we’ve entered a new era, and this weaponization of justice is going to be a wicked cycle. And some of the very Republicans right now doing it may be the targets three years from now. … What goes around, comes around,” Joe Scarborough warned on his MSNBC show “Morning Joe” on Wednesday of Mr. Comey’s indictment.
The panel spoke of how Mr. Comey’s indictment was “unprecedented,” an example of how President Trump is targeting his political enemies through lawfare, which has never been done before. It left me so confounded that I wondered whether the panel and Mr. Scarborough himself had been in space, orbiting around Earth for the past decade.
Democrats created the game of “lawfare” and have been playing it against Republicans since 2016. Now, “what goes around, comes around” is coming for them.
It was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign that created a dirty dossier linking Mr. Trump to Russia in a bogus hoax they then fed to the FBI. The FBI ate it up, spied on the Trump campaign and then ensnared the first Trump administration in special counsel reviews and investigations, which led to nothing except wasted time, taxpayer money and political capital.
During Mr. Trump’s tenure, a former IRS contractor with animus toward the president illegally leaked his tax returns to multiple news outlets.
After the events of Jan. 6, 2021, President Biden initiated the most extensive criminal investigation in U.S. history, conducted by the Justice Department. The investigation pursued cases against more than 1,500 American citizens. No jury fully acquitted a Capitol riot defendant. Most were forced to plead guilty to avoid prolonged jail time, even if they were charged only with misdemeanors.
This week, we learned that the Justice Department used the Jan. 6 investigation to spy on eight Republican senators without their knowledge. Mr. Biden’s FBI sought and obtained data about the senators’ personal cellphones for “tolling data” as part of its Arctic Frost investigation. The probe expanded to target nearly 100 Republican organizations and individuals, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA.
Two weeks ago, we learned that the Transportation Security Administration, under Mr. Biden’s leadership, had heightened surveillance through its Quiet Skies program to target his political opponents, including now Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, several Republican lawmakers and hundreds of people involved in the Jan. 6 events. Kristi Noem, Mr. Trump’s homeland security secretary, ended the program and condemned its politicization.
Mr. Biden’s Justice Department targeted pro-life activists praying outside abortion centers, failed to prosecute antifa and pro-Hamas rioters along with church arsonists and vandals, probed possible threats posed by “radical traditionalist” Catholics and sought a “federal hook” for parents protesting at their local school board meetings.
Meanwhile, Mr. Biden told members of his inner circle in 2021 that he believed Mr. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted. He said he wanted Attorney General Merrick Garland “to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6,” according to The New York Times.
A few months later, Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence was raided by the FBI, complete with agents thumbing through first lady Melania Trump’s lingerie drawer. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who ran for office on the promise of putting Mr. Trump in jail, filed a civil fraud lawsuit accusing Mr. Trump and his company of inflating his net worth to secure favorable loan terms, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg opened a criminal investigation into Mr. Trump for falsifying business records.
A year later, Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis indicted Mr. Trump and 18 co-defendants under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, alleging a conspiracy to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results. Her beau and top prosecutor on the case, Nathan Wade, admitted to multiple meetings at Biden’s White House to discuss the investigation.
In all, Mr. Trump faced 91 felonies punishable by 700 years in jail, complete with a mug shot, courtesy of Ms. Willis. As of today, Mr. Trump’s various legal cases have included convictions, dismissals and ongoing appeals. Trump allies Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro have been imprisoned, and FBI agents raided Roger Stone’s home.
After it became clear Mr. Trump would win the 2024 Republican nomination for president, Colorado, Maine and Illinois worked to strip his name from the ballot. It was only after the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in that his name was restored.
After Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Trump was banned from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, prohibiting him from communicating with his supporters. He spent much of the past four years in a courtroom defending himself, not on the campaign trail. When he did do a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, he was nearly assassinated by a deranged lunatic who believed Mr. Biden’s lies. One attendee was killed and two others were injured.
Despite all this, Mr. Trump prevailed. He’s now the 47th president of the United States. I wouldn’t wish Mr. Trump’s trials and tribulations, all initiated by Democrats, on my worst enemy.
What goes around, comes around.
Democrats wrote the lawfare playbook; Republicans are now just playing by it.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.