It’s Only Wednesday: Trump’s Abuse of Power Knows No Bounds

Today’s events make one thing unmistakably clear: the Trump administration is abusing the full weight of government to punish his political enemies and intimidate anyone who he deems to be an ideological threat.

As former FBI Director James Comey is arraigned on charges that were brought after President Donald Trump publicly and privately pressured prosecutors, despite a lack of evidence, President Trump took to social media to call for the imprisonment of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson — a stunning escalation in his public threats against elected officials.

Meanwhile, the President is set to convene a so-called “roundtable on Antifa,” echoing his recent executive order aimed at targeting organizations he labels without evidence as “domestic enemies.”

The pattern is unmistakable: criminalizing critics, ordering investigations to find crimes, and using public office to settle personal and political scores. This pushes the bounds of executive power that no president–Democrat or Republican–should have at their fingertips.

This public rejection of the government’s growing abuses of power is not confined to one end of the partisan spectrum and conservatives are increasingly sounding the alarm. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski warned that the Justice Department’s independence is “called into question” when it faces overt political pressure from the White House. In The Free Press, longtime conservative nonprofit leader Sean Noble cautioned that efforts to weaponize government against opponents risk “creating a monster we cannot control” and warned conservatives that a Democratic administration could wield the same powers. And the conservative think tank CATO echoed those warnings, reminding conservatives that when you protect your opponents’ rights, you protect your own. Conservative pundits and comedians even rallied around Jimmy Kimmel after he was suspended, including Joe Rogan, Clay Travis, and Ben Shapiro.

This shouldn’t be a partisan issue, and for most Americans it isn’t. Overwhelmingly, Americans do not believe politicians should be able to weaponize the government against their perceived ideological opponents.