How the Trump Justice Department is targeting his perceived opponents

0:00On the campaign trail, here is what President Trump promised. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution. In his first year back in office, President Trump has pulled many different levers of government to pursue revenge against those he sees as having wronged or betrayed him. We have a stupid person, frankly, at the Fed. There he is referring to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. The U.S. attorney in Washington is investigating Powell over building renovations that are running over budget. Well, here's how Powell responded on Sunday. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public rather than following the preferences of the president.

0:48This was also the week where several Minnesota federal prosecutors resigned. The DOJ had pushed them to investigate not the killing of Renee Macklin-Good, but instead the woman who is now her widow for her ties to activist groups. And then another headline tied to the Justice Department this week. Five sitting Democratic lawmakers said that federal prosecutors recently contacted them for questioning. Last year, they had all made a statement on video urging members of the military to refuse illegal orders. One of those lawmakers was Michigan Senator Alyssa Slotkin. I think it's meant to get you to shut up.

1:25Senator Slotkin spoke to my colleague Juana Summers on Thursday. She said the U.S. attorneys did not say if they were investigating a crime. Just the mere fact that they've initiated this, that you have to get a lawyer, you have to come up with a strategy, you have to have these conversations, is the point. Right? The intimidation is the point. Consider this. This week, the Justice Department made it clear that it is targeting Trump's perceived enemies with threats of federal prosecution. After the break, a closer look at the most recent escalation.

2:08From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang.

2:17It's Consider This from NPR. The Department of Justice is once again at the center of the news with investigations of federal lawmakers and the chairman of the Federal Reserve and resignations by career prosecutors in Minnesota. So we have asked NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro and NPR justice correspondent Kerry Johnson to talk about what's been happening over the last week. Hello to both of you. Hey there. Hi there. Kerry, let's start with you. It feels like we have been seeing like an escalation for the Justice Department and the Trump administration this week, like both when it comes to the tactics that this administration uses and their willingness to push the boundaries of the law.

2:59Right. Is this all part of some bigger goal, you think? Definitely. Virtually everything that's happened over the past week could have been predicted on Inauguration Day. President Trump returned to the White House promising to investigate his perceived political enemies. And after the election, people were worried about DOJ, but changes there have been more sweeping and more quick than many of them feared. The Supreme Court in the immunity case made clear President Trump and future presidents are largely immune from prosecution for their official actions in office. And so this is an aggressive Justice Department under Trump's full command, really the culmination of statements he made on the campaign trail.

3:39That's right. On the campaign trail, because as a candidate, he promised, right, to go after his enemies. He also promised to be tough on immigration. Domenico, how are people responding to what's been happening in Minnesota specifically? Well, the situation in Minneapolis is really highlighting some of these aggressive tactics of the Trump administration. There's new polling this week out from a couple of outfits. A Quinnipiac poll found that 57 percent disapprove of the way that ICE is enforcing immigration laws. 53 percent said that they don't think that the shooting was justified, while only 35 percent say that it was.

4:13And this has become the real problem for Trump on something that had been an advantage with immigration. You know, people may be in favor of deporting criminals who are in the country illegally, but they've also been saying for months that they see this administration's approach as going too far or acting too harshly when it comes to deportations. And that's been dragging down Trump's numbers overall on immigration. Well, Minnesota, I mean, it's just one part of the story this week, right? Right. Like Democrats in Congress say that they are being investigated over a video urging military members to disregard illegal orders.

4:47How do those investigations fit into what we've been talking about? Yes. Several Democrats this week told us they've heard from the FBI and agents who want to interview them. They say this is an infringement on their First Amendment rights and potentially their rights as lawmakers as they try to do their jobs. One of them, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, has gone so far as to sue the Pentagon, which has been threatening to reduce his rank and benefits over what he said in that video. Yeah, and I have to say from a raw politics perspective, I mean, do Republicans really want to elevate the profiles of people like Mark Kelly, the senator from Arizona, or Alyssa Slotkin, the senator from Michigan?

5:25They're two of the more moderate members of the Democratic caucus. Talking about an astronaut, a former CIA analyst. I mean, they'd cut pretty good profiles for 2028 candidates. And I'd venture to say that if not for how the Trump administration has gone after them, Kelly in particular would not likely be somebody who's as much part of the 2028 conversation as he is now. And it's also just not the wing of the Democratic Party that politically you would think the Republicans would want to highlight. So maybe they're shooting themselves in the foot. Well, there was more this week. The Department of Justice is investigating Jerome Powell, as we said, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

6:01And then we saw that the FBI searched the home of a Washington Post journalist. Carrie, can you just explain what's been happening on those fronts? Yeah, a real whirlwind. On Sunday night, Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman, made a video explaining that he seemed to be under criminal investigation for testimony he gave on Capitol Hill about renovations to the Fed's buildings. Powell basically said this was a smokescreen that President Trump wants to get rid of him because the Fed wasn't moving as quickly as Trump wanted on interest rates. And then a few days later, FBI agents showed up in the morning at the home of a Washington Post reporter.

6:37They took two laptops, a phone and a smartwatch. The Justice Department says this is tied to an investigation of a federal contractor who's been accused of retaining government secrets. But to search a reporter's home is a stunning step, one that past administrations had avoided and one that also may run afoul of a federal privacy law. I mean, it seems like retribution is a major theme now in Trump's second term. Yeah, for sure. It's a huge motivating factor. I mean, remember, he's been smarting from investigations that were going into him for years and he's been promising, quote unquote, retribution.

7:14And that's come into fruition now. You know, it's really become a sort of political platform in the second term, fuel for conservative grievance. He's gone after any number of perceived political enemies, whether it's former officials who've spoken out against him, journalists, universities, law firms, you name it. Yeah. Well, Carrie, how are people inside the Justice Department responding to some of this backlash? They're not saying much about the investigation of Jerome Powell or the one of Democratic lawmakers on the video, but they are defending the immigration efforts in Minnesota. The Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche says federal immigration officers are risking their lives in Minneapolis under chaotic conditions and they have to make split second decisions.

7:57He says he sees no reason to open a civil rights investigation into Renee Macklin Good's death. Instead, DOJ seems to want to investigate Good's widow and any ties she has to activist groups. And that suggested direction of the investigation does not seem to have gone over well with some of the career prosecutors in the DOJ, right? Like, what's the latest there? Major unrest in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota. Several prosecutors quit. These resignations are part of a broader pattern that's been happening across the country since Trump took office in Tennessee, D.C., Virginia. And, of course, what happened in last year, New York, with the dropping of the case against former New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

8:37In all these instances, the ethics of career prosecutors are being put to the test. And so long as the president commands the Justice Department to target his critics, it's likely to keep happening. Well, what I want to know, Domenico, is, I mean, we've seen Trump take an aggressive approach before and courts have stepped in or public sentiment has turned against him. So I'm wondering, what are you noticing about how Trump is responding in this moment? Well, I mean, Trump trying to centralize power and finding out what the guardrails are is something that I always thought might define the second term.

9:10And those are really being determined now, mostly by the courts. You know, politics can also provide some guardrails. You know, if something's unpopular, politicians usually try and dial it back. We saw that in Trump's first term with child separation policies, but it's not really Trump's style. And obviously here in the second term, with him term limited, it wouldn't be surprising to see him be even more unrestrained, especially if he thinks that Republicans are going to lose the House this year anyway. That is NPR's Domenico Montanaro and Kerry Johnson. Thank you to both of you. You're welcome.

9:41My pleasure. This episode was produced by Megan Lim and Karen Zamora. It was edited by Kelsey Snell, John Ketchum, and Patrick Jaron Watanonin. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. And thank you to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors and unlock bonus episodes of Consider This. Learn more at plus.npr.org.

10:15It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.