Two Criminal Referrals Test the Weaponization of the DOJ

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A central tenet of Trumpism is that past Democratic administrations “weaponized” the Department of Justice (DOJ) against poor, poor Donald. Of course, that’s a lot like accusing Rudy Giuliani of “weaponizing” RICO laws against the mob when he was still sane and a capable US attorney fighting organized crime in the 1980s… or “weaponizing” water against fire.

The list of the illegal and shady things that Donald Trump did — that we know about — is long: There was his “university” scam, the perpetual stiffing of contractors; various tax offenses (for which he now enjoys immunity thanks to the deal he finagled with his DOJ); all of the unlawful stuff he did in his first term in office, including that related to his January 6, 2021, coup (for which he enjoys immunity thanks to his Supreme Court); the sexual assaults he admitted to on camera and/or was accused of; the hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and a smattering of other white collar crimes, including that for which he received his felony conviction, which, ironically, was one of the least bad things for which he has been prosecuted.

It is an affront to justice that he has so far (largely) escaped accountability. Trump is a career crook and con man (as well as a sexual abuser), and the only reason he isn’t behind bars is that rich people can get away with just about anything in the US.

There are other reasons why this “weaponization” argument doesn’t hold water, not least of which is that the DOJ under Joe Biden indicted a sitting Democratic senator, a sitting Democratic member of the House of Representatives, the Democratic mayor of New York City, and, oh, the president’s own son.

Obviously, none of that matters to Trump, whose ability to cast himself as a victim is impressive, or to his overwhelmingly white and mostly male followers, who view themselves as part of an oppressed group.

If it did, and if they cared to find out what it really looks like when an administration weaponizes justice, they would have to look no further than a few blocks down from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. That’s where newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche and others are turning the DOJ into a cudgel to be used against anybody on the president’s long list of adversaries — often with rather embarrassing results.

From former FBI Director James Comey, the prosecutors who indicted Trump, a dude who threw a sandwich at an ICE agent, a former Olympian who wanted to touch a piece of the detached Reflecting Pool lining, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia (aka, the “Maryland Man” who made the administration look like a bunch of amateurs), to the various immigrants who were accused of “ramming” the ICE vehicles that ran them off the road, just to name a few, the DOJ has become an enforcement arm for the president’s grievances.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Instead of supporting the cause of justice, the department is also involved in the harassment and intimidation of election workers; is responsible for the slow, incomplete, and sloppy release of the Epstein files; and is trying to rewrite the history of the January 6 insurrection.

But for today, let’s focus on the administration’s selective prosecutions.

Soon, another name may be added to the list: that of Jack Smith, who may be Trump’s biggest target, for having secured indictments against him not once but twice.

A couple of weeks ago, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked the Department of Justice to investigate the former special counsel for perjury because he had not volunteered information that the lawmaker and his colleagues didn’t ask him about.

It’s a flimsy pretense for waging lawfare against Smith, but Trump’s DOJ has indicted others for much less, like photographing an arrangement of seashells for an Instagram post.

After all, it’s not as though the former special counsel had knowingly provided false information while testifying before Congress. You know, for example, if a lawmaker had asked him a direct question while under oath and the answer he gave was a lie.

And that brings us to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who appears to have done just that.

In June, he testified before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology that the termination of billions of dollars in grant money for clean energy projects was not based on politics.

Good luck squaring that with the fact that only states that had voted against Trump lost out on these funds.

Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, even tweeted out a list of them in gleefully announcing, “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”

Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left's climate agenda is being cancelled. More info to come from @ENERGY.

The projects are in the following states: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MD, MA, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA

— Russ Vought (@russvought) October 1, 2025

But that’s not the smoking gun in this case.

This is.

A little over a month after Sec. Wright testified that “no decisions were made [based] on politics” with regard to the termination of these projects, and that it is “bullshit” to assert otherwise, his department stipulated in court documents that the decision was “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State.”

What that looked like in practice was that, with a single exception, the 284 canceled grants “had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing Senators,” while the remaining 340 projects, which were not terminated, all benefited states that voted for Trump.

That sure sounds political, which is why a couple of Democrats — Reps. Zoe Lofgren (CA) and Gabe Amo (RI) — sent their own criminal referral to the DOJ.

“It is a weighty thing to assert that a Cabinet Secretary lied to Congress,” the lawmakers wrote. “We do not treat that assertion as a trivial matter, and we do not use those words carelessly. But the facts of the situation are clear and undeniable.”

While that may be true, we imagine that their request for the DOJ to “review this matter expeditiously and with the utmost seriousness, and if warranted, seek to bring criminal charges” will be ignored.

Unless, of course, they can unearth evidence that Wright is guilty of the only crime that matters to this administration: disloyalty to Donald Trump.