This Week in Democracy – Week 36: Kimmel Returns as Comey Is Indicted
Another week of Zeteo's project to document the growth of authoritarianism in Trump's second term.
Nine months into Donald Trump’s second term, and the playbook is clear: Trump demands something. A smart, career, experienced official says, ‘no, it’s not possible, legal, good for the nation.’ That person is pushed out and replaced by a Trump crony who has little to no experience. And…Trump gets what he wants.
This week, we saw it with James Comey – who is among the top former officials on Trump’s retribution list. A career prosecutor resisted Trump’s pressure to prosecute his enemies, including the former FBI director. He was replaced by one of Trump’s former personal lawyers with no prosecutorial experience. And guess what? Just days later, Comey was indicted.
It’s yet another move that not only harms democracy but also underscores that the Justice Department is turning into nothing more than Trump’s personal revenge force. And it’s not the only thing Trump did this week that erodes American values, undermines the Constitution, and hurts US standing in the world.
From Trump’s deranged speech at the UN General Assembly to his FBI dropping a bribery case against his border czar, who allegedly took $50,000 from undercover agents, to more details about the administration’s child separation policies to the president offering dangerous and unscientific medical advice, here’s ‘This Week in Democracy – Week 36’:
Saturday, September 20
MSNBC reported that Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, was recorded by the FBI last year accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover agents in exchange for immigration-related government contracts if Trump won the presidential election. While the FBI and DOJ planned to wait to see if Homan would go through with the deals, FBI Director Kash Patel ordered the bribery case to be officially closed in recent weeks. In a statement, Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said they found “no credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing” by Homan, who didn’t deny or confirm the reports but said he did nothing wrong.
Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Mary “Maggie” Cleary as acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, one day after US Attorney Erik Siebert resigned from his position over pressure to issue criminal charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
Later that evening, Trump revoked Cleary’s nomination and instead elevated his former White House assistant and personal attorney, Lindsey Halligan, to succeed Siebert and “get things moving.” Halligan has no experience working as a prosecutor and has spent most of her career working on insurance matters in Florida. The only federal cases she has filed appearances for during her decade working in law were for Trump.
On Truth Social, Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his political enemies, including Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey, and Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), writing, “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.” He added that “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Also on Truth Social, Trump threatened Venezuela, saying that he wants the country to “immediately accept all of the prisoners, and people from mental institutions” that he claimed without evidence were “forced” into the US, adding, “GET THEM THE HELL OUT OF OUR COUNTRY, RIGHT NOW, OR THE PRICE YOU PAY WILL BE INCALCULABLE!”
He also threatened Afghanistan, saying if the country doesn’t return the Bagram Air Base to US control, “BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!!!”
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is canceling an annual government survey conducted by the Agriculture Department that measures food insecurity in the US. A spokesperson for the department said the survey, which has been conducted since the mid-1990s and is used to make funding decisions for food assistance programs, “became overly politicized” and is “unnecessary.” The final report, which will include 2024 results, is expected to be released on Oct. 22.
Trump’s Agriculture Department moved to freeze more than $10 million in food assistance funding for Kansas after its governor refused to turn over the personal information of every beneficiary and applicant since 2020.
Sunday, September 21
Politico reported that State Department staffers are warning that Trump is breaking US diplomacy. More than half of US ambassadorships remain vacant eight months into Trump’s second term, and most senior State Department roles are filled on an acting basis by people who lack relevant experience. Additionally, many employees are afraid to speak out due to fears of being fired or losing promotions under new rules measuring their “fidelity.”
Speaking at Charlie Kirk’s memorial, Trump called him “a great American hero,” “our greatest evangelist for American liberty,” and “a martyr now for American freedom.” While Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow and the new CEO and chair of Turning Point USA, said she forgave the shooter, Trump doubled down on his hateful rhetoric, saying Charlie “did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them.
That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.”
Monday, September 22
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued new sanctions against the wife of a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who sat on a panel that convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro and sentenced him to more than 27 years in prison for organizing a coup after losing the 2022 presidential election. The sanctions were issued under the Global Magnitsky Act, which is meant to target international human rights abusers. The Brazilian government called the sanctions “a new attempt of undue interference in Brazilian internal affairs,” and accused the Trump administration of politicizing and distorting the Magnitsky Act.
Lindsey Halligan was sworn in at the Justice Department as the interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The New York Times reported that Trump appointees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development are rolling back the enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, a decades-old civil rights law banning discrimination in housing. Current and former department employees told the Times that Trump’s appointees have made it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs, and several lawyers said they were blocked from communicating with their clients without approval from an appointee. The office’s director of enforcement also warned a US senator that the appointees have used gag orders and intimidation to block discrimination cases from moving forward.
During a press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Homan “never took the $50,000” during the undercover FBI operation, and accused the agents of trying to “entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters.” Later, on Fox, Homan refused to say whether he took the $50,000, saying instead, “I did nothing criminal or illegal.”
Trump held a press conference where he spewed anti-vaccine rhetoric, repeated widely debunked claims about vaccines causing autism, and urged pregnant people not to take Tylenol or give the drug to infants. Tylenol is often recommended for pregnant people with fevers, which, when left untreated, can result in miscarriages, premature births, and other problems. New York University bioethicist Art Caplan called the press conference “the saddest display of a lack of evidence, rumors, recycling old myths, lousy advice, outright lies, and dangerous advice I have ever witnessed by anyone in authority.”
Trump also suggested changes to the childhood vaccine schedule “based on what I feel,” including giving the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine separately, and delaying the Hepatitis B vaccine until age 12, despite the fact that mothers who have the disease can pass it to their children at birth.
Trump signed an executive order designating “antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization, despite the fact that “antifa” – which stands for “anti-fascist” – isn’t even an organization and doesn’t have a leader, membership, or a centralized structure. He (nor any part of the government) also cannot legally designate any domestic group as a terrorist organization. The order was remarkably broad, targeting those involved in “armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on [ICE] and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures and activists.” As it reads, the order suggests that anyone protesting or filming ICE officers could be charged as a domestic terrorist.
The Supreme Court ruled that Trump can move forward with firing Rebecca Slaughter, the last Democratic leader of the Federal Trade Commission, while it takes up her case. The justices will also decide whether the president has the ability to fire the heads of independent agencies, potentially overturning a 1935 landmark ruling. In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the court’s majority has, through its orders, “handed full control of all those agencies to the president,” who may remove “any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all.”
NOTUS reported that since Trump’s term began in January, the number of attorneys in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which investigates corruption cases against politicians and police officers, has dropped from 36 to two. The lawyers have quit under pressure, resigned in protest, or have been reassigned.
Disney announced that it would resume production of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ beginning Tuesday, less than a week after suspending the program. TV station owners Sinclair and Nexstar said they would continue to pre-empt the program on their affiliate stations. Nexstar is currently seeking to buy Tegna, another local TV operator, in a deal that would require the Trump FCC to change rules limiting the percentage of households a single company’s stations can reach.
The Agriculture Department placed roughly a dozen employees who were responsible for economic research and the government’s food insecurity survey on leave, two days after canceling the annual survey.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee opened an investigation into the Justice Department’s decision to close a criminal probe against border czar Tom Homan, demanding that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel turn over all recordings of the undercover operation that resulted in Homan allegedly accepting $50,000 in cash, along with all investigative files and any communication between the White House and their agencies about the case. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee later opened an investigation of their own.
Tuesday, September 23
DHS filed a proposal to overhaul the H-1B lottery process to “favor the allocation of H-1B visas to higher skilled and higher paid” immigrants.
NPR reported that nearly 20 immigration judges have been given notice of their dismissal this month. At least 14 of them learned last week that they were being put on leave ahead of their terminations, with some of them set to take effect as soon as Wednesday.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore $500 million in federal grant funding to the University of California, Los Angeles. The administration froze the funds last month over allegations of civil rights violations at the school.
On Truth Social, Trump announced that he would cancel meetings with Democratic congressional leaders meant to prevent a government shutdown on Sept. 30, saying Democrats “hold American Citizens hostage” instead of legislating, despite Republicans holding power in all three branches of government.
During a 55-minute deranged speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump told representatives from other nations that “your countries are going to hell,” attacked London Mayor Sadiq Khan with Islamophobic and racist comments, and derided the UN, saying, “Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should, too often, it’s actually creating new problems for us to solve.” Trump also complained about issues with the teleprompter during his speech, as well as an escalator that temporarily stopped as he began to use it.
On Fox, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said without evidence that the teleprompter and escalator issues could have been sabotage, and warned that if the administration finds UN staffers were responsible, she will personally see that there is “accountability” for their actions.
The New York Times reported that Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, the Harvard dean who consulted with top Trump health officials about unproven risks related to Tylenol use during pregnancy, was paid at least $150,000 to be an expert witness for plaintiffs in lawsuits against the maker of the drug. The judge who dismissed the lawsuits agreed with lawyers for the defendants that Baccarelli “cherry-picked and misrepresented study results” in his testimony, which made him an “unreliable” witness.
In a court filing, the FBI said its agents found documents marked as classified at John Bolton’s DC office. Bolton’s lawyer said in a statement that the materials “were reviewed and closed years ago,” and added that “these are the kinds of ordinary records, many of which are 20 years old or more, that would be kept by a 40-year career official.”
Trump changed his tune on Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying he believes that Ukraine “is in a position to fight and WIN” all of its land back with support from the European Union. He added that the US will continue supplying weapons to NATO, which will be provided to support Ukraine’s military.
Ahead of the return of ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!,’ Trump falsely called Kimmel “yet another arm” of the Democratic National Committee, which he baselessly claims “would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution.” He threatened to “test ABC out on this,” noting that while the network settled for $16 million with him in his last lawsuit, “this one sounds even more lucrative.”
The Pentagon announced that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth terminated the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, which was created to expand the role of women in the military. A Pentagon spokesperson accused the committee of focusing on “advancing a divisive feminist agenda that hurts combat readiness,” and added that Hegseth has focused on “advancing uniform, sex-neutral standards across the Department.”
CNN reported that more than 100 children who are US citizens have been separated from their parents due to immigration actions since Trump took office in January.
Four Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to Nexstar and Sinclair demanding answers regarding their decision to continue pre-empting ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after ABC resumed the program. The letter warned, “If Nexstar or Sinclair traded the censorship of a critic of the administration for official acts by the Trump administration, your companies are not only complicit in an alarming trampling of free speech rights but also risk running afoul of federal law.”
Wednesday, September 24
The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is planning to reallocate nearly $2 billion in foreign aid towards priorities that advance Trump’s “America First” agenda, including countering “Marxist, anti-American regimes” in Latin America, despite the funds already being appropriated by Congress.
Karen Attiah, a Washington Post columnist who was fired last week over social media posts in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk, filed a grievance arguing her posts were within the company’s labor agreement and social media policy. Attiah also sent a letter to the Post’s head of human resources in an effort to recover damages from her termination.
Top House and Senate Democrats launched an investigation to determine if prominent law firms that reached agreements with Trump to avoid being targeted through executive orders are violating the law by doing pro bono work for his administration.
The Post also reported that the acting FEMA administrator has frequently been inaccessible to employees, including during the Texas mass floods in July, when key officials couldn’t reach him for nearly 24 hours to sign off on emergency response expenditures.
The Trump administration introduced a “Presidential Walk of Fame” on the West Wing Colonnade of the White House, which features portraits of presidents in gold frames, except for Joe Biden’s, whose portrait is substituted by a photograph of an autopen.
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from withholding billions of dollars in emergency management grants to states that refused to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement operations, calling the conditions “arbitrary and capricious” and unconstitutional.
A federal judge rejected a request by a group of inspectors general at eight federal agencies to return to their positions after being fired by Trump. While the judge acknowledged that Trump likely violated the law by firing them without notifying Congress or providing a reason for their dismissals, she ruled that the plaintiffs failed to show they had suffered irreparable harm from their firings. She also noted that even if they were reinstated, Trump could remove them again after 30 days if he followed the requirements in the Inspector General Act.
Bloomberg reported that border czar Tom Homan participated in the contracting process for the Trump administration’s expansion of immigration detention facilities across the country despite saying last year that he would recuse himself from doing so after having been paid as a consultant for GEO Group, which has received more than $1 billion in new federal contracts since Trump’s term began.
After a shooting at an ICE field office in Dallas, Texas, that killed one immigrant who was detained there and injured two others, Trump took to Truth Social to blame the “Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to ‘Nazis’” as the reason for the shooting. He also indicated that he would sign an executive order to “dismantle these Domestic Terrorism Networks,” despite the shooter, who subsequently fatally shot himself, acting alone.
Also on Truth Social, Trump demanded an investigation into what he described as “sabotage” at the UN surrounding the escalator and teleprompter, calling them “sinister events!” and said “the people that did it should be arrested!” The AP’s UN correspondent, Farnoush Amiri, tweeted earlier that a UN official said “someone from the president’s party who ran ahead of him inadvertently triggered the stop mechanism on the escalator.” Additionally, the official said the White House was operating the teleprompter for Trump.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent a memo to federal agencies directing them to draft plans for mass firings of employees who work on programs that aren’t legally required to continue if a government shutdown occurs next week. Typically, federal employees are furloughed during a government shutdown and return once funding is restored by Congress.
More than 100 former journalists at ABC News sent a letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger calling for him to make “a concerted effort to defend free speech and press freedom against political intimidation,” and stand “firmly against capitulation and in defense of democratic values,” adding that “the First Amendment is not negotiable.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that after Trump was notified by aides that the outlet was planning to publish an article about his letter and drawing that appeared in Epstein’s now-notorious “birthday book,” the president said the letter didn’t exist and that he would try to kill the story himself. He subsequently called Rupert Murdoch, the chair emeritus of News Corp, the parent company of the Journal’s publisher, and told him he should handle it. Trump also reportedly asked influential allies why people are so fixated on Epstein, and “groused” that “people don’t understand that Palm Beach in the 90s was a different time.”
Four Democratic senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio telling him to demand that Israel not attack the Sumud Flotilla, which is transporting humanitarian aid to Gaza and is carrying US citizens. The request comes after Spain and Italy sent ships to protect the flotilla.
Thursday, September 25
CBS News reported that a branch of the National Archives may have violated the Privacy Act of 1974 and exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act after it released Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s almost completely unredacted military records to an ally of her Republican opponent in the New Jersey governor’s race. The documents included her Social Security number, the addresses for her and her parents, and life insurance information. Sherrill called the move “an illegal and dangerous weaponization of the federal government.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for a criminal investigation into the disclosure.
Four DC residents and immigration rights organization CASA filed a class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging ICE’s immigration arrests in the District without warrants or probable cause, which they argue have systematically targeted individuals perceived to be Latino.
Trump’s Justice Department sued six more states – California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania – arguing they are breaking the law by failing to turn over voter data, a request the states have called unprecedented and illegal.
ABC News reported that Justice Department officials directed top federal prosecutors in at least seven states to prepare to launch criminal investigations into the Open Society Foundations, which is funded by George Soros, with potential charges prosecutors could consider, including material support to terrorism, arson, wire fraud, and racketeering. In a statement, a spokesperson for the non-profit organization said it “unequivocally condemn[s] terrorism and do[es] not fund terrorism,” adding that their activities are “peaceful and lawful.”
The Trump administration announced it will withhold more than $65 million in federal grants from magnet schools in three school districts in New York City, Chicago, and Fairfax, Virginia, that refused to change their policies for trans and nonbinary students and end programs associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Speaking to reporters, Trump said he “will not allow” Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the occupied West Bank, adding, “It’s not going to happen.”
CNN reported that Jeremy Carl, Trump’s nominee to be assistant secretary of state for international organizations, deleted at least 5,000 tweets before his nomination. Carl, who would be responsible for overseeing US policy for the United Nations and managing more than 100 global diplomats, repeatedly called Jan. 6 insurrectionists “political prisoners” and said they had it worse than Black Americans in the Jim Crow South, mocked George Floyd’s death, and repeatedly wrote about the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.
Trump signed an executive order to further delay the TikTok ban in the US from taking effect for 120 days while negotiators finalize a deal to transfer the ownership of the app from Chinese tech company ByteDance to a group made up of mostly US investors, including some known for being longtime supporters of Trump and the Republican Party. Trump previously hinted that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch would be part of the company as well. The order marked the fifth time Trump has delayed the TikTok ban in defiance of a Congressional statute and a Supreme Court ruling ordering the app to be shut down unless ByteDance sells it. Speaking to reporters, Vice President JD Vance noted that the US company “will have control on how the algorithm pushes content to users.”
Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on criminal charges of obstruction and making a false statement to Congress related to his Senate Judiciary Committee testimony in 2020 about the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign’s links with Russia. The indictment, from the Eastern District of Virginia, came just days after Trump fired its US attorney and replaced him with his former personal attorney. In a video, Comey said that his “heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent, so let’s have a trial.”
On Truth Social, Trump bragged about Comey’s indictment, calling it “JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” and referring to his political opponent as “one of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to.” Hours before the indictment was filed, Trump told reporters that he “think[s] I’d be allowed to get involved if I want.”
Comey’s son-in-law, Troy Edwards, resigned from his position as an assistant US attorney for the same Virginia office prosecuting the former FBI director.
Trump signed a presidential memo directing federal law enforcement to investigate “domestic terrorism and organized political violence,” which he has blamed on the left. The memo also instructs the Internal Revenue Service commissioner to “ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism” and refer those that are to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.
Trump suggested his administration would target billionaire Democratic donors George Soros and Reid Hoffman next, saying, “If they are funding [antifa], they are going to have some problems.” He also noted that anyone who says they are “antifa” should get “the maximum [penalty] under the law.”
He signed another memo directing prosecutors to pursue the death penalty “to the maximum degree practicable” in DC. The move aims to use federal law to circumvent the fact that officials in the district repealed the death penalty in 1981.
Friday, September 26
Politico reported that the Trump administration expects a government shutdown to occur next week. A senior White House official indicated there are no current plans to negotiate with Democratic leaders to avoid one, saying they will “pay a huge price for this,” and adding that “their constituencies and their priorities are all going to get chewed up, and ours, not so much.”
ProPublica reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem expedited the release of more than $11 million in federal disaster assistance funds to rebuild a historic pier in Naples, Florida, after a campaign donor intervened. The move comes as FEMA, which Noem oversees, faces complaints about massive delays in providing aid to communities hit by hurricanes and floods.
The New York Times reported that more than 145 people have been fired, suspended, reassigned, pushed to resign, or otherwise disciplined for things they said about Charlie Kirk and his killing, including professors, healthcare workers, lawyers, journalists, restaurant workers, and airline employees.
Trump continued celebrating Comey’s indictment on Truth Social, calling him a “Dirty Cop” who “just got unexpectedly caught.” He claimed that Comey “was a destroyer of lives,” and that a “very big price must be paid!” for his “serious and far reaching lie.”
Asked by reporters who is next on his list after Comey was indicted, Trump said, “there will be others,” adding without naming names that “they weaponized the Justice Department like nobody in history.”
Also on Truth Social, Trump issued an all-caps rant giving medical advice that goes against what experts recommend, including telling pregnant people not to take Tylenol unless absolutely necessary or not to give the drug to a young child “FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON.”
Sinclair and Nexstar announced that they will resume airing ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on their ABC affiliate stations, and claimed in separate statements that their decision to pre-empt the program was independent of any government interaction or influence.
A coalition of press freedom organizations filed an amicus brief in support of Spanish-language journalist Mario Guevara’s habeas corpus petition. Guevara, who has lived in the US for over 20 years, was arrested in June while covering a ‘No Kings’ protest and has remained in ICE custody since, despite the charges against him having been dropped. Guevara faces deportation to El Salvador.
Trump called for Microsoft to fire its new president of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, who served as deputy attorney general during the Biden administration, calling her a “menace to U.S. National Security” and noting that his administration revoked her security clearances and banned her from all federal properties.
The Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid that had been appropriated by Congress and is set to expire at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The Department of Homeland Security relieved an ICE officer of his duties while it investigates an incident caught on camera, in which the officer was seen violently shoving a woman to the ground shortly after arresting her husband outside an immigration court in New York.
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a Last Week Tonight style video in addition to the written article would be amazing! Easier to consume and clip, therefore spreads the news farther. But it’s so much information that it might be hard to be brief
To know the hands of 6 supremes have thrown the lives of 330,000,000 people away leaves me heartbroken