Retribution looms for the NeverTrumpers

“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” says James Comey, the former FBI director, in a video statement on – naturally – Bluesky. “We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either.”

The Resistance is strong in that one. To a dwindling number of hardcore NeverTrumpers, Comey is a sort of godfather figure. He seems to love the attention, too. He wrote a self-aggrandizing memoir called A Higher Loyalty, about his fall-out with Donald Trump and the start of the Trump-Russia, Russia, Russia business. Earlier this year, moreover, he was even accused of elliptically threatening Trump’s life, when he posted and then deleted on Instagram an image showing the numbers “86 47” written in seashells on a beach. (The number 86 is code for “get rid of,” or “kill” in gangster-speak, and Donald Trump is currently serving as the 47th President of the United States.)

Now it’s Team Trump that’s threatening Comey – with imprisonment. Yesterday, Trump’s DoJ indicted him on two counts: for making a false statement and for obstructing a congressional proceeding. Reports of the indictment are full of sources suggesting it is wafer-weak, in terms of legal power. Yet the Trump administration seems to be relishing its opportunity to use the legal system to exact revenge on the legal system and the various “resistance” heroes such as Comey who spent years trying to condemn Donald Trump on any number of fronts.

Kash Patel, the new FBI director, insists his Bureau is merely calling “balls and strikes,” focusing on the mission rather than revenge. But nobody believes that. This is what the “retribution” Trump promised looks like. This is what many Trump supporters voted for.

Other NeverTrumpers will be next. John Bolton, Trump’s former national security advisor, who also wrote a pompous memoir about the awfulness of the Donald, is next in the DoJ’s sights. The FBI searched his downtown office in DC last month and reportedly seized various classified documents.

On another front, too, Attorney General Pam Bondi is pursuing the George Soros Foundation, for allegedly supporting terrorism, in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Critics will continue to moan about the erosion of civilized politics and a slide toward authoritarianism. This can’t be happening in America! Over and again, however, the Trump administration’s response is: “Let’s see about that.” Or, to borrow from the vulgar pro-Trump meme, “WAGTFKY” (“We Are Going To Fucking Kill You.”)

Trumpists in Washington hope that the American public will spot the way in which the Democratic media machine, which cheered on every act of lawfare against Donald Trump, now pours scorn on Bondi, Kash Patel, and Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, for pursuing Trump’s enemies. Trump insiders also think that figures such as Comey, Bolton and others are so contemptibly self-important that people can’t help but oppose them.

And there’s no doubt that the double-standards and sanctimonious hypocrisy of NeverTrumpers are deeply galling to the President’s supporters.

It’s notable, however, that, as his administration’s lawfare operation has ramped up in recent weeks, Trump’s approval rating has dipped. That might have more to do with broader concerns about the economy. But most American voters don’t seem to like the weaponization of justice, no matter who is doing it.

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