What happens when you cross 1) Trump’s promise of revenge against his perceived enemies, 2) the specific Project 2025 plans of politicizing the DOJ, and 3) a Supreme Court granting immunity to a president and administration for official acts?
What you get is an absolute nightmare: a government weaponized for political purposes, with no guard rails to stop it. Something unrecognizable in the America we have known.
So to ensure that people do understand just what a nightmare it would be, we asked Morgan Fairchild (who plays a Liz Cheney-style figure who stood up after January 6) and Richard Schiff (“Toby” from West Wing) to narrate Episode 5 of our podcast — “Trump’s Project 2025: Up Close and Personal.”
And I warn you, what these two stars, the podcast producers, and other actors have put together is as chilling a podcast episode as you will ever hear. (I wrote the words of the Episode, but I could not stop listening once I started!)
Still, the most chilling aspect is that the story is drawn from the very real promises Trump and Project 2025 are making.
Please listen wherever you get your podcasts. And you can link HERE to find it.
Then…please share with others. The more people recognize the threat posed by another Trump term, the more likely we are to defeat him over the next month.
Author’s Note: Episode 5
Here are the Facts on Project 2025, the DOJ, and Immunity
Donald Trump has made clear from the opening of the campaign that his goal is to seek revenge. “I am your retribution,” he says. And he and his team name names:
Trump casually tells allies he plans to have the federal government “punish critics and opponents.” And his list includes not just Democrats, but former allies such as Bill Barr and John Kelley, but those who dared cross or criticize him, such as Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley.
“Look, when this election is over, based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them, and it would be easy because it’s Joe Biden.”
He amplifies social media posts about a military tribunal for Liz Cheney for treason, and the prosecution of a broad swath of elected officials, including Biden, VP Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnell, and bipartisan members of the Jan. 6 Committee.
And he says he will investigate the prosecutors who investigated his crimes, among other reasons. “I will direct a completely overhauled DOJ to investigate every radical out-of-control prosecutor in America for their illegal, racist and reverse enforcement of the law.”
His loyalists have been equally explicit.
Steve Bannon, just a few months ago: “November 5 is judgment day. January 20, 2025, will be accountability day.”
To those who investigated Trump, he said: “You are going to be investigated, prosecuted and incarcerated…This has nothing to do with retribution. It has nothing to do with revenge. Because retribution and revenge might be another order of magnitude. This has to do with justice.”
Another conservative lawyer, John Yoo, has vowed: “In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents.”
Another Trump surrogate has been circulating a list all year of top targets of MAGA retribution: the list “includes numerous Democratic and Republican elected officials; FBI and intelligence officials; members of the House Select January 6 Committee; U.S. Capitol Police officers and civilian employees; witnesses in Trump’s two impeachment trials and the Jan. 6 committee hearings; and journalists from publications ranging from CNN and the Washington Post to Reuters and Raw Story — all considered political enemies of Trump.”
The Vehicle: Project 2025 Weaponizes the DOJ and FBI
Under traditional American governance, none of this “lock ‘em up” talk would lead to much. (In fact, Trump repeatedly called for investigations of enemies when he was president, but they didn’t happen). And that’s due to safeguards, bright lines, and checks-and-balances that keep a president from exacting political revenge through the government itself.
At the heart of those checks and balances has been the independence of the prosecutorial/litigation functions of the Department of Justice, as well as the independence of the FBI.
Those guardrails all disappear under Project 2025, which proposes a “top-to-bottom overhaul” (Page 547) in the DOJ. The changes would empower Trump to exact the political revenge he’s been threatening all campaign.
The heart of the Project 2025 plan is eliminating the DOJ’s independence from the White House and Trump. “While the supervision of litigation is a DOJ responsibility, the department falls under the direct supervision and control of the President of the United States as a component of the executive branch.” (Page 559).
The plan also makes clear that the FBI “is not independent from the department…and does not deserve to be treated as if it were.” (Page 549). One way to establish this: rather than a 10-year term, “[t]he Director of the FBI must remain politically accountable to the President in the same manner as the head of any other federal department or agency.” 552
There are two key steps in eviscerating the DOJ’s independence: “First: flood the Justice Department with stalwart conservatives unlikely to say "no" to controversial orders from the White House. Second: restructure the department so key decisions are concentrated in the hands of administration loyalists rather than career bureaucrats.” (Reuters)
More on Step 1: the plan aims to “[e]nsure the assignment of sufficient political appointees throughout the department….The number of appointees serving throughout the department in prior Administrations—particularly during the Trump Administration—has not been sufficient either to stop bad things from happening through proper management or to promote the President’s agenda….It is not enough for political appointees to serve in obvious offices like the Office of the Attorney General or the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. The next conservative Administration must make every effort to obtain the resources to support a vast expansion of the number of appointees in every office and component across the department—especially in the Civil Rights Division, the FBI, and the EOIR. [Executive Office for Immigration Review.]” (Page 569).
More on Step 2: Project 2025 calls for tearing down barriers between the White House and the DOJ: “the Justice Department and the White House counsel should act ‘as a team.’ And while [Project 2025] notes that contact between the White House and the Department of Justice traditionally occurs between the office of the White House counsel and the attorney general or deputy attorney general — a practice that aims to reduce the risk of political interference in law enforcement — [Project 2025] encourages a new administration to ‘re-examine this policy and determine whether it might be more efficient or more appropriate for communication to occur through additional channels.’” (NYT)
One of the premier experts on authoritarian governments, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, explainedthe danger of these proposals: “the very definition of authoritarianism is when the executive branch overwhelms, or politicizes or hinders from being independent the judiciary and the other branches of government….You also have to have a compliant civil service…They’re going to take apart the DOJ as an independent body…and make it into something else….That something is a body that will protect the president and his cronies….”
As I pointed out in a prior post, Project 2025 has already begun training “vetted conservatives who go to work on Day 1.”
Flush with political appointees and no longer held back by independence, Project 2025 makes it clear that “litigation decisions must be made consistent with the President’s agenda.” (Page 559).
And even though that clause includes one caveat—that “criminal prosecutions…can warrant different treatment”—it doesn’t elaborate what that means, and the “treatment” described later follows the same theme of highly politicized investigations and actions.
For example, as Trump does nearly daily, the plan urges politicized prosecutions out of the gate. Including—the DOJ should prosecute any use of the mails to transport abortion pills page (page 567); should “restrain the excesses of both the legislative and judicial branches,” (Congress and courts) (page 560); should “initiate legal action against local officials—including District Attorneys—who deny American citizens the “equal protection of the laws” by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions (page 553); and should target in-state officials for prosecution for “voter registration fraud and unlawful ballot correction.”
This is almost word for word what Trump promises when he says: “And I will direct a completely overhauled DOJ to investigate every radical out-of-control prosecutor in America for their illegal, racist and reverse enforcement of the law.”
The plan explicitly calls for prosecutions in Pennsylvania for election allegations that were part of Trump’s “Big Lie”: “the Pennsylvania Secretary of State should have been (and still should be) investigated and prosecuted for potential violations of 18 U.S. Code § 241.” (Page 564)
In sum, according to PBS, “Project 2025 proposes placing the Justice Department squarely under Donald Trump's authority, doing away with any traditional independence that we usually see for the Justice Department and the attorney general. They want Donald Trump to install a loyal attorney general, install loyal lawyers across the board, and Trump himself has repeatedly said that he wants to do this.”
And the plan would “transform[] the FBI into a political task force.”
Presidential Immunity: Project 2025 “On Steroids”
As if this weren’t all bad enough, the Supreme Court’s recent immunity decision made this entire plan far more dangerous—adding a layer of protection to all the above actions that Project 2025 proposes taking, no matter how outrageous and lawless.
In a Kettering Foundation podcast, Neal Katyal explained how easy the Court has made it for the DOJ to protect the president and itself from accountability: “All the president has to do is slap on the label ‘this is an official act.’”
And Judge J. Michael Lutig echoed the risk: “This is an unequivocal clear holding by the Supreme Court of the United States of America that a president will be immune from prosecution for violating not only the Constitution, but any criminal statute. As a practical matter, virtually every single thing the president does is and will be forever considered an official act for which he will be immune from prosecution.”
But the decision’s protection of “official acts” goes beyond the president himself, and this is where it provides such a dangerous “assist” to Project 2025.
As NYU law professor Melissa Murray explained on MSNBC: the decision establishes that when the president acts through the DOJ, or issues orders via the DOJ, “because the DOJ is viewed as an extension…of the president, those actions are immunized. Project 2025 ramps this up, puts it on steroids, makes it impossible…to prosecute the president or indeed anyone working through the DOJ for those acts because they are official acts in the perimeter of his official duties….”
You can watch this whole interview HERE.
For a broader critique of the plan, and the lies it is based on, go HERE: https://verdict.justia.com/2024/07/12/a-deep-dive-into-project-2025s-plan-to-subvert-the-rule-of-law-and-use-the-department-of-justice-as-an-instrument-for-political-oppression
Folks, what is describe in the Episode is fiction, but the details of Project 2025 make it entirely possible. Please be sure to spread the word so others know as well.
New POD Episode: "The Department of Retribution"