Trump’s pressure on Pam Bondi to charge his political foes could backfire, legal experts say

Washington – The insistence of President Donald Trump on the fact that his Attorney General carries charges against three political opponents perceived could turn against him if cases go to court, undergoing his efforts to see them punished, certain legal experts said on Monday.

In an article on social networks on Saturday, Trump pressed the Attorney General Pam Bondi about three people who raised his anger and who did not face criminal charges at this point: Senator Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; The Prosecutor General of New York State Letitia James; And the former director of the FBI James Comey.

He mentioned that he had been charged and charged several times “on nothing!”

“Justice must be done now !!!” He wrote. He also quoted “declarations and messages” not specified which he had read by saying that the trio is “guilty like hell, but nothing will be done”. »»

Due to the exhortation of Trump, defense lawyers could support their customers that their clients were selective proceedings and did not receive a regular procedure required by the Constitution, said Bruce Green, a professor at the Fordham Law School who specializes in ethical issues.

“If they choose these people not because they are guilty of something … But because the president is there to obtain them because they are democrats and they have made his life miserable before, it is an inadmissible base,” said Green.

Another problem is whether Schiff, James and Comey could never get a fair trial if it happened, said Stephen Gillers, professor of legal ethics at the School of Law at New York University.

“He is his worst enemy,” said Gillers about Trump.

“Sometimes people make declarations, but it is the President of the United States saying in court and a possible jury that people tried before them are guilty. I cannot imagine that a court leaves this to a verdict. Prejudices of this kind of declaration are enormous,” said Gillers.

John Walsh, who was a American lawyer in Colorado for six years ending in 2016, said in an interview: “This certainly gives defense an argument that the accusations are politically motivated and not based on advantages and evidence and argument. Some judges may find that, depending on the motions that take place before the trial. ”

But he added that even if the Ministry of Justice understands this reality, civil servants could pursue a strategy which he described as “the investigation is punishment”.

The abolition of a federal survey is expensive for the target and can harm its reputation considerably, he said.

“A survey is a very serious thing against professionals, yes, there is a cost to defend you even,” he added.

Extraordinary Message from the weekend to Bondi – “PAM”, as he called him – put the Attorney General in a difficult situation, said Jill Wine -Banks, a former Advocate General of the US Army and an assistant special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s.

If Bondi welcomes the President and the Ministry of Justice is looking for indictment against Schiff, James and Comey, “who will believe that this has not been done for political purposes?” Asked the rhetorical wine benches. “And if she doesn’t do it, she’s going to be dismissed. So it’s a loss of loss, whatever happens.”

Trump tempered his message later on Saturday.

He posted that Bondi was doing an “excellent work” while later telling journalists in a press group: “If they are not guilty, that’s good. If they are guilty, or if they were to be judged, they should be judged. And we have to do it now. “

The three people that Trump admitted classified it for various reasons.

Comey carried out an investigation into Trump’s possible links with Russian leaders, which concluded that Trump’s campaign had not stuck with Russian agents. Trump dismissed Comey five months after his first mandate. Comey refused to comment on Monday.

Schiff, then a member of the Chamber, led Trump’s first dismissal during the president’s first term. Schiff published a response to Trump on social networks: “There is no hiding place in political and armaments. Everything is open.”

James brought a successful civil action against Trump in 2022 who accused him of having overvalued assets, including real estate, in loan requests. The financial penalty of the prosecution against Trump was then canceled.

James’ office refused a comment request.

During a press briefing on Monday, the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt, amplified the conviction by Trump of the trio.

“You are looking at people like Adam Schiff and James Comey and Letitia James,” she said, “who is rightly frustrated.”

She added that Trump “wanted the responsibility of these corrupt fraudsters who abused their power, who abused their oath to target the former president, then candidate for the highest post in the country”.

Trump has long argued that he was the victim of an armed judicial system when Joe Biden was in office. In his inauguration speech on January 20, he undertook to end these practices.

“Never again the immense power of the state will be armed to persecute political opponents-something I know,” he said. “We do not allow this to happen. It will not happen again. ”

Bondi made a similar promise during its confirmation audience in front of the US Senate in January.

“Under my watch, the partisan armament of the Ministry of Justice will end,” she said. “America must have a level of justice for all.”

Now, however, criticism fear that Trump will erase post-watergate standards that were supposed to protect prosecutors from political interference.

Representative Don Bacon, R-Neb., Told NBC News in a statement: “The president should not order the Attorney General to continue those who have continued him in the past six years. Lawfare is corrosive towards a democracy and he does exactly what he accused the Democrats of doing him. of our legal system.

Taking worrying development occurred last week, criticisms said when the federal prosecutor responsible for investigating the allegations of mortgage fraud against James resigned after Trump said that he no longer wanted him to occupy this position. (Trump said he had drawn the prosecutor, Erik Siebert.)

Trump administration officials had put Siebert to investigate the potential accusations of mortgage fraud against James.

Two federal sources of law enforcement say that prosecutors did not think they had enough evidence to charge James a mortgage fraud on a virginia house that she bought for her niece in 2023.

These same sources said that the prosecutors estimated that there was not enough evidence to charm Comey concerning the allegations according to which he had lied to the Congress in 2020 concerning the FBI investigations into the 2016 elections.

Senator John Kennedy, R-La., A member of the judicial committee, told NBC News: “” Two wrongs do not do things, but they even do it “is the kind of thing that occurs in countries whose Jackpot Powerball is 287 chickens and a goat. It is not supposed to perform in America.”

“The administration of President Biden began this” law “, as the media call it, and I was then worried about having sparked spirits that they could not control,” he added. “I questioned the prosecutor general leaps on this subject during his confirmation hearing, and she agreed with me. Any prosecution of an official must be based on objective and convincing evidence of criminal behavior, and not based on the political ideology of this civil servant. ”