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Trump's insatiable appetite for revenge has rapidly morphed into a structured apparatus. Over the past year, the leader's rage and impulses have assumed the form of official policies in a manner analogous to historical dictatorial governments. Justice department officials who do not cooperate are summarily dismissed and succeeded by supporters. Opposing leaders who confront him face prosecution, trial and penalties. Critics have been designated under presidential orders as “anti-American”, “opposed to religious values” and “opposing economic freedom”, and threatened with prosecution as “terrorists”.

Government Institutions Restructured

Every case involving targeting of Trump's enemies and leniency for his allies displays its own unique qualities. Yet, despite their specific character, they represent expressions of what has developed as a deliberate technique. Those episodes are anything but random. The administration's cleansing of DoJ lawyers and law enforcement officials, accompanied by his placement of supporters in senior positions, commenced quickly, quickly took on a consistency, and has now been shaped into a structure. The justice department and the FBI have been transformed into ideological organizations under Trump's direct orders to execute his wishes. Injustice has been rendered normal. This is the apparatus of revenge.

Management is more concerned with targeting the President's perceived enemies than they are with protecting our public welfare.

Within the Apparatus

The origin of this mechanism has been uncovered in the lawsuit of three ex- high-ranking Federal Bureau officials filed in the ninth month in the US district court in the capital against top official Kash Patel and top lawyer Pam Bondi for illegal termination in “a campaign of revenge against Plaintiffs for what Defendants deemed to be a inability to demonstrate adequate political loyalty”. The document states that one official, the previous temporary head, recounts a exchange in which the director “openly admitted the unlawfulness of his behavior”.

The official had sought to shield agency personnel from being dismissed, the filing alleges. Patel advised him that “they” – understood by Driscoll to be the White House and federal prosecutors – had instructed him to remove everyone who they identified as having worked on a criminal investigation against him. The complaint goes on: “Patel clarified that he had to terminate the individuals his leaders told him to remove, because his ability to keep his own role depended on the dismissal of the agents who were involved in cases involving the chief executive. He commented that there was no option he or him could do to prevent these or any other dismissals, because ‘the agency attempted to put the chief in detention and he hasn't forgotten it.’” Once he informed him he was breaking the bureau's own internal rules, he allegedly said “he knew that and he realized the nature of the immediate dismissals were likely improper”.

Widespread Impact

After Patel's alleged admission to Driscoll, the DoJ and the law enforcement agency have been weakened and redirected for the administration's revenge apparatus. Several of the FBI's senior executives were dismissed or compelled to leave in the first days of the presidency. Roughly 4,500 professional attorneys at the justice department have accepted a “voluntary departure plan”. At least seven federal prosecutors, among them those in the New York office, quit in protest over what they viewed as ideological pressure in withdrawing the corruption case against the city leader, a political figure, in exchange for his collaboration with Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement roundups of migrants. The anti-corruption unit of DoJ, which oversees misconduct investigations, has been diminished to a handful of lawyers. The rights protection unit has been severely reduced: the majority of its staff has departed. A third of executives at the department have left. The unit implementing environmental law has seen departures of 50% its management.

Favors and Penalties

Concerning the mayor's situation, the interim prosecutor for the NY office, the official, quit in objection against what she characterized as the “exchange”. The border official, the president's “immigration leader,” appeared as the implementer with him on Fox News to announce: “Unless he complies, I'll reappear in NYC.”. Meanwhile, a former official, formerly the acting deputy attorney general and a past legal representative, who brokered the deal, was awarded an appellate federal judgeship, a possible pathway to the supreme court.

His protection for offenses perpetrated while in government, awarded by the extraordinary decision of the GOP-led on the supreme court, thus thwarting his legal action over the Capitol riot and maintaining his political viability for the presidential race, is the foundation stone on which he depends to defend his supporters. Under these circumstances, he has been freed to enable wrongdoing. The effect of the supreme court decision infuses his presidency and the GOP completely. The legal case has spread. In the words of a past leader's White House counsel John Dean said about the Watergate