The media and Democrats want everyone to believe that the Trump administration is the first administration to weaponize its Department of Justice, but this is something that truly started during the Obama administration, only it was done much more quietly.
Obama used the IRS, went after conservative critics, such as Dinesh D'Souza, then protected his Attorney General when Congress went after him for contempt. Biden was no different, hitting Trump with four indictments while sheltering his son and allies under the protection of a presidential pardon.
The only difference between what Trump is doing and what Obama and Biden did is that the Trump administration pulled back the curtain to the point that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche just put them all on notice, and it has former Hillary Clinton operative Marc Elias terrified.
A lot of bad things happened during the Obama administration, especially during the second half, including weaponizing the DOJ to go after political enemies.
One of the bigger scandals on this front was IRS boss Lois Lerner having systematically targeted Tea Party and conservative nonprofit groups applying for tax-exempt status.
She was focusing on keywords in organization names, such as “Tea Party,” “patriot,” and “9/12,” flagging them to be scrutinized.
When Lerner was called before Congress, she took the fifth. No prosecutions ever came from the scandal, and the IRS eventually settled the lawsuits and apologized. The House Ways and Means Committee blamed it on “low-level IRS bureaucrats.”
And let’s not pretend that Trump is the first person to go for a pint of blood against political enemies, because this was perfected during the Obama administration.
Dinesh D’Souza, Bob McDonnell, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker were all targeted by the Obama administration. The administration also went after whistleblowers and journalists during this period, such as James Rosen and Sharyl Attkisson, as well as seizing phone records of AP reporters. As you can see from the table below, this administration was very aggressive on this front:
| Target | Category | What Happened | Outcome | Double Standard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tea Party/Conservative nonprofits | Critics | IRS systematically targeted groups with "Tea Party," "patriot," or "9/12" in their names | Delayed for years, invasive questioning, donor lists demanded. Lois Lerner pleaded the Fifth. | DOJ under Holder declined to prosecute anyone. IRS eventually settled and apologized. |
| Scott Walker/Conservative groups (WI) | Critics | Predawn raids and secret "John Doe" investigations targeting groups aligned with Gov. Walker | State court shut down investigation as violation of the First Amendment. | Prosecutors used paramilitary-style raids on political activists. |
| Dinesh D'Souza | Critic/Opponent | Prosecuted for $20,000 straw donor campaign finance violation. Vocal Obama critic and filmmaker. | Pleaded guilty. 5 years probation, $30,000 fine. Trump pardoned him in 2018. | Similar violations by Democrats resulted in fines, not criminal charges. |
| Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) | Opponent | Prosecuted on corruption charges. | SCOTUS unanimously overturned conviction. DOJ used overly broad definition of "official act." | Prosecution widely viewed as politically motivated. |
| Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) | Opponent | Indicted on abuse of power for vetoing funding for a DA arrested for drunk driving. | Charges dismissed. | Widely seen as politically motivated. |
| James Rosen (Fox News) | Journalist | DOJ named him "criminal co-conspirator" in leak investigation. Warrants seized his emails, phone records. Movements tracked. | Never charged. Chilling effect on press freedom condemned across the political spectrum. | Obama had pledged to run the most transparent administration in history. |
| Associated Press reporters | Journalists | DOJ secretly seized phone records of AP reporters and editors. | No charges. Records seized without notice. | Unprecedented government surveillance of a news organization. |
| Sharyl Attkisson (CBS) | Journalist | Claimed her computers were hacked by government operatives while investigating Fast and Furious and Benghazi. | Claims disputed but never fully resolved. Attkisson filed lawsuit against DOJ. | One of the few mainstream reporters aggressively covering Obama-era scandals. |
| Edward Snowden (NSA) | Whistleblower | Charged under the Espionage Act for exposing mass domestic surveillance programs. | Fled to Russia. Still charged. Trump considered a pardon. | Obama prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all prior presidents combined. |
| Chelsea Manning (Military) | Whistleblower | Charged under the Espionage Act for leaking classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks. | Sentenced to 35 years. Obama commuted sentence in 2017 after 7 years served. | Commutation came only after massive public pressure. |
| Jeffrey Sterling (CIA) | Whistleblower | Charged under the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking classified information to journalist James Risen. | Convicted. Sentenced to 3.5 years. | Sterling maintained he was targeted for filing a racial discrimination complaint against the CIA. |
| John Kiriakou (CIA) | Whistleblower | Charged under the Espionage Act for confirming the CIA's use of waterboarding. | Pleaded guilty. Served 30 months. | The only person jailed in connection with the CIA torture program. Those who authorized and carried out the torture were not prosecuted. |
| Thomas Drake (NSA) | Whistleblower | Charged under the Espionage Act for retaining classified documents after reporting waste and fraud through proper channels. | All felony charges dropped. Pleaded to a misdemeanor. | Drake had gone through official whistleblower channels first. Was prosecuted anyway. |
| AG Eric Holder | Protected | Held in contempt of Congress (criminal and civil) for refusing to turn over Fast and Furious documents. | DOJ under Holder declined to prosecute its own AG. Obama asserted executive privilege. | Compare directly to Bannon and Navarro under Biden. Same offense, different outcome. |
In terms of cover-ups, has there ever been anything bigger than the Fast and Furious cover-up with Eric Holder as Obama’s wingman Attorney General?
Holder was held in contempt of Congress, both criminally and civilly, for having refused to turn over the documents in the case. The DOJ refused to prosecute Holder, and Obama flexed by claiming executive privilege over the documents.
We are talking about an operation of $1.5 million used to purchase nearly 2,000 firearms illegally, two of which were traced to the killing of an ATF agent, Brian Terry, and nobody was ever held accountable.
When Biden took office, he said that his DOJ would be independent, but there is little doubt among conservatives that Merrick Garland was told to take Trump down any way he possibly could.
This started with the appointment of Jack Smith as the Special Counsel in two major cases against Trump.
Smith oversaw the January 6-election interference case, as well as the classified documents case. The former was paused due to presidential immunity, and the latter was dismissed by Judge Aileen Cannon, who ruled that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional, according to a Justia report.
And the prosecutions did not stop with the DC office, as New York Attorney General Letitia James, Fulton County DA Fani Willis, and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg all filed suits or charges against Trump in what was a monumental wave of legal battles aimed at derailing a past president and future presidential candidate. Trump was the enemy; they knew it, and they used everything in their power to try to stop him.
Biden went after Trump’s allies, such as Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, and Roger Stone. While nobody here will argue that dozens of defendants in the January 6 riot needed to be put behind bars, I will argue that many people who had been arrested for non-violent crimes were sentenced far harsher than, say, the George Floyd rioters. The courts and prosecutors were clearly making a statement in these cases.
There were more than 1,400 people prosecuted related to the riot, many for misdemeanor trespassing, with some held in pretrial detention for extended periods. The outrage here is that we see judges allow violent criminals in blue states to go free with no bail, yet trespassers were put behind bars until their trial date arrived.
As a reference, during the 2020 George Floyd riots, there were fewer than 400 people federally charged (according to the DOJ), when our city streets were literally being set on fire. Again, I don’t want to make light of the violent attacks against police officers, as those individuals, in my opinion, should still be behind bars. But there was a clear disparity in how both sets of “criminals” were treated.
Then, of course, there were the lack of prosecutions, such as Lois Lerner never being held accountable, the Hunter Biden pardon, the lack of a prosecution of Eric Holder, the pre-emptive pardons issued by Biden, and the fact that Joe Biden himself was let off the hook by Special Counsel Robert Hur, who characterized Joe Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” reported The Guardian.
This was the sitting president of the United States, so let that digest for a moment. Biden was not charged due to that perception, yet he was permitted to sit in the Oval Office for the remainder of his term.
As you can see from the table below, Biden followed the lead of the Obama administration:
| Target | Category | What Happened | Outcome | Double Standard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Donald Trump (federal, DC) | Opponent | Jan 6/election interference indictment via Special Counsel Jack Smith. | Case paused over immunity ruling. Smith resigned before Trump took office. | No president had ever been indicted by his successor's DOJ. |
| Donald Trump (federal, FL) | Opponent | Classified documents indictment via Special Counsel Jack Smith. | Judge Cannon dismissed. Smith's appointment ruled unconstitutional. | Biden found to have "willfully retained" classified docs. Hur declined to prosecute. |
| Donald Trump (Manhattan) | Opponent | 34-count felony indictment on business records related to Stormy Daniels under DA Alvin Bragg. | Convicted. | Bragg initially declined to prosecute. Reversed after public pressure. Legal theory criticized even by left-leaning scholars. |
| Donald Trump (Fulton County) | Opponent | RICO election interference indictment under DA Fani Willis. | Willis faced disqualification over relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Case stalled. | Willis campaigned on prosecuting Trump. |
| Donald Trump (NY AG civil) | Opponent | Civil fraud case under AG Letitia James. | $454M judgment. | James campaigned explicitly on "getting Trump." |
| Steve Bannon | Ally of Trump | Contempt of Congress for defying Jan 6 committee subpoena. | Convicted. Served 4 months in federal prison. | Eric Holder committed the same offense under Obama. Never prosecuted. |
| Peter Navarro | Ally of Trump | Contempt of Congress for defying Jan 6 committee subpoena. | Convicted. Served 4 months in federal prison. | Holder, Lerner never prosecuted for same or similar defiance. |
| 1,400+ January 6 defendants | Opponents/Critics | Charges ranging from misdemeanor trespassing to conspiracy. | Many held in extended pretrial detention. Conditions at DC jail drew bipartisan criticism. | BLM/Antifa rioters in 2020 had charges dropped or reduced at far higher rates. |
| Hunter Biden | Protected | Gun charges and tax charges. | Convicted on both. Joe Biden pardoned him in Dec 2024 despite repeatedly promising he would not. | Original sweetheart plea deal collapsed in court after judge questioned its scope. |
| Biden classified documents | Protected | Special Counsel Hur found Biden "willfully retained and disclosed classified materials." | Declined to prosecute, describing Biden as "a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." | Trump indicted for the same category of offense. |
I have never tried to deceive anyone over Trump giving his DOJ marching orders to go after his political opponents. But the only difference here is that Trump is banging pots and pans while doing it rather than trying to cloak it and deny it.
There is no doubt that when Pam Bondi was appointed as Attorney General, it was done with the understanding that she would go after the big three, that being James Comey, the former Director of the FBI, Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York, and John Brennan, the former head of the CIA.
Trump, according to an NBC News report, had accidentally posted his orders to Bondi on Truth Social, writing:
"What about Comey, Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, Leticia [sic]??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility."
The post continued:
"They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!"
The report claimed that Trump meant to send that to Bondi as a direct message. Regardless of how it was sent, it was clear that Trump wanted his enemies held accountable. And it should not have surprised anyone.
One of my first deep dives was on John Brennan, exposing him as someone that I would deem to be a traitor to this country (click here to read the Brennan deep dive).
This is a man who is documented as having lied to Congress on multiple occasions, a crime for which other officials have gone to jail for, yet he has never even seen the inside of a courtroom on this front.
When some prosecutors refused to bring cases, Trump put people in place that he knew would carry out his agenda, such as Alina Habba and Lindsey Halligan, both of whom were later ruled illegal appointments by the court, according to the New York Times.
The table below shows the key cases during the current administration that could be considered political weaponization:
| Target | Category | What Happened | Outcome | Double Standard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Comey | Opponent | Indicted on false statements and obstruction charges under Bondi. | Case dismissed. Judge ruled Halligan unlawfully appointed. Grand jury refused to reindict. | Comey leaked classified memos to the press via a Columbia professor. |
| Letitia James | Opponent | Indicted on bank fraud and false statement charges under Bondi. | Same judge, same ruling, same dismissal. Grand jury refused to reindict. | James had campaigned on "getting Trump." |
| John Brennan | Opponent | Under investigation for false statements to Congress. | Career prosecutors say case is weak. Bondi summoned lead prosecutor to DC before firing. Ongoing under Blanche. | Brennan lied about CIA accessing Senate computers. Later admitted it. |
| Marc Elias | Opponent | Named in executive order for role in Steele dossier. Singled out by name by the President. | Elias has publicly admitted fear of prosecution. FEC fined Clinton campaign/DNC $113K for hiding dossier payments. | Durham found FBI unable to corroborate a single substantive dossier allegation. Elias directed the research. |
| Adam Schiff | Opponent | Investigation reportedly opened. | No charges to date. Stalled. | Schiff repeatedly claimed "direct evidence" of Trump-Russia collusion. Never produced it. |
Democrats and the media act as though this is something new taking place, and how horrible it is that we have a sitting president weaponizing the DOJ against his political enemies.
The fact of the matter is, as I have proven on this page, that this was first done on a grand scale by the Obama administration, and the media sat on its hands the entire time and barely said a word. It surely was not considered weaponizing at the time.
The prosecutions and targeting aside, if the “only” scandal was Eric Holder’s Fast and Furious scandal, it would have ruined a Republican. Instead, some in the media still say Obama had the only “scandal-free” administration in modern history. A boast Obama himself uses.
Biden learned how to weaponize the DOJ during the Obama administration, and perhaps he was the mastermind behind it all, who knows. Regardless, he continued to use the DOJ to take out his enemies and critics during his time in office. But again, the media justified his actions because of the pure hatred of Donald Trump on the left.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche put anyone who thinks they may be on Trump’s list on notice. Reuters reported Blanche telling the media:
"We have thousands of ongoing investigations and prosecutions going on in this country right now. It is true that some of them involve men, women and entities that the president in the past has had issues with and believes should be investigated. That is his right and indeed it is his duty to do that, meaning to lead this country."
He got the attention of Marc Elias, the Clinton operative behind using the Steele dossier against Trump. During a recent interview, according to a Daily Caller report, he stated:
“It is not just that we have a madman conducting our foreign policy. We have a dictator surrounded by sycophants who are using the power of the state, the power of the federal government to target his political opponents and his political adversaries. And as we head towards elections, we should just expect a lot more of this.”
Keep in mind, this is a man who pushed a dossier filled with untruths that was later debunked by Special Counsel John Durham's report. He literally ran a targeted operation against Donald Trump, a Republican enemy of the Democrat Party. That operation, by the way, resulted in the Clinton campaign and DNC being collectively fined $113,000 by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), reported CNN.
Trump is not doing anything new here. And I am not saying it is right or wrong, but it is what the two Democrat administrations did before him. The only difference is that Trump is not trying to pull the wool over our eyes while it is happening.
