Fresh from his triumph in the Middle East, President Donald Trump returned to Washington and reverted to playing the vengeful monarch, holding a press conference in the White House to announce his enemies' list and demand that they be prosecuted — for something. Having put in place a personal lawyer of his with no prosecutorial experience who was willing to bypass the Department of Justice, her predecessor and career prosecutors to indict former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, and now having secured the indictment of former National Security Adviser-turned-Trump critic John Bolton, Trump had a new list of targets for his puppets in the Justice Department.

"Deranged Jack Smith," Trump said of the special prosecutor appointed by former Attorney General Merrick Garland, "in my opinion, is a criminal ... His interviewer was Weissmann" — Andrew Weissmann, one of the lead prosecutors in the investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign's ties to Russia, who interviewed Smith at a recent event. "I hope they're going to look into Weissmann, too — Weissmann's a bad guy. And he had somebody, Lisa" — Lisa Monaco was the deputy attorney general in the Biden administration — "who was his puppet, worked in the office, really, as the top person. I think she should be looked at very strongly."

This is not the first time Trump has vowed to target the "scum" who investigated him, as well as others who have criticized him, from Beyonce to Bruce Springsteen to U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff. What made it different was who was in the room when he made the demands: Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General (and former Trump personal lawyer) Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel. They did not say a word about the independence of their institutions, or the prohibitions on vindictive prosecutions. Instead, as the New York Times reported, "They smiled, nodded and shuffled in place as he spoke."

"Nothing like what we see now has ever gone on," Jack Smith told Andrew Weissmann in the interview that Trump was referring to. "There are rules in the department about how to bring a case — follow those rules. You can't say: 'I want this outcome. Let me throw the rules out.'"

It is not just a matter of Justice Department rules. The reason those rules are in place is because selective and vindictive prosecutions against political enemies violate the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution. Prosecutors are given a wide berth — it's called "prosecutorial discretion" — in deciding who to prosecute and what to charge them with. But that discretion is not unlimited. Vindictive prosecutions aimed at settling political scores are unconstitutional.

James Comey is almost certain to raise this defense. Days before his indictment — after the U.S. Attorney in Virginia resigned rather than bring an indictment against Comey — Trump posted on Truth Social, "We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times) OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!" That is almost certainly enough to create what the Supreme Court has termed a "presumption of vindictiveness," which the government must rebut, putting Trump on trial.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Nashville found a "reasonable likelihood" that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who had been deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order and then indicted on trumped up charges, was facing an unconstitutionally vindictive prosecution. In doing so, the judge called out the same Todd Blanche who was in the Oval Office meeting with Bondi and Patel, for the public comments he had made attacking Garcia as well as the judge who ordered that he be returned to this country: "Deputy Attorney General Blanche's remarkable statements could directly establish that the motivations for Abrego's criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights to bring suit against the executive official defendants rather than a genuine desire to prosecute him for alleged criminal misconduct."

In most cases, it's hard to prove that a prosecution is vindictive, or unconstitutionally selective. Trump and his team of puppets are making it easy.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Molly Hutson at Unsplash