Donald Trump is now weaponizing the Department of Justice to punish ordinary citizens. This is fascism.

Trump Is Getting Desperate. It Shows.

Echo opinion essay published in The New York Times by Liz Oyer-Department of Justice pardon attorney from 2022 to 2025.

When the deputy attorney general personally announces an indictment from Justice Department headquarters, it signals a matter of national importance. So, when Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter announced that he would hold his first news conference, observers rightly expected a major case.

Instead, Mr. McCotter announced an indictment of a rogue postal worker for improperly disposing of mail. The Utah mail carrier, Damon Matai Seei, was apparently covering a colleague’s delivery route at the time. By his own admission, he was feeling “overwhelmed,” and sought to “lighten his workload” by discarding a batch of undelivered mail in a church dumpster. In an interview with federal law enforcement, he admitted this was a “poor decision” made out of “frustration” and “laziness.”

Mr. Seei claimed that he believed the discarded mail was advertising material. But according to prosecutors, it also included 300 mail-in ballots for a primary election. He was charged with a single felony count of delay or destruction of mail, which is one of several commonly prosecuted postal crimes.

Mr. Seei had no apparent intent to interfere with an election. But that did not stop the Justice Department from offering him up to the public as an election saboteur. 

The deputy attorney general called Mr. Seei — a 34-year-old with no prior criminal history — “a danger to the public and to the integrity of the electoral system.” Mr. McCotter and his boss, Attorney General Todd Blanche, each appeared on Fox (Fake❗) News to shore up the story.

Their chest-thumping highlights how desperate Justice Department leaders are to substantiate the president’s claims of election interference, and how miserably they are failing. At the news conference, Mr. McCotter admonished reporters: “Remember, folks. Voting fraud is real.” In other words: We may not have much proof, but trust us.🙄

Recent polling shows that President Trump’s baseless claims about mail-in voting fraud are persuading few people outside his base. Still, the officials who surround him remain doggedly committed to proving otherwise — much like the ministers who refused to tell the emperor he was wearing no clothes. After Mr. McCotter’s news conference, a top Justice Department spokeswoman lashed out at a correspondent who characterized Mr. Seei’s prosecution as “a case about a tired mailman.” On its official X/ account, the department posted a highly produced video in which Mr. McCotter insists weakly, and without evidence, that the case is “just the tip of the iceberg.”

These actions are reminiscent of the aftermath of the 2020, election, when a rogue Justice Department official sent a letter to Georgia election officials falsely claiming that the department had evidence of “significant” irregularities in the state’s election. His plan was stymied only because the rest of the Justice Department’s senior leadership threatened to resign if it went forward. The acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, reportedly told Trump he could not “change the facts” of the election.

What’s different and scarier now is that the Justice Department’s leadership is working together to validate the president’s election lies from the top down. Turning fiction into fact is now part of the job description. A refusal to concede that Trump lost the 2020, election has become a litmus test for all his political appointees.

Initially, Trump’s justice system targeted specific individuals who had angered him — such as Senator Mark Kelly or the former F.B.I. director James Comey. 

Now, it has adopted a dragnet approach, trawling to find perpetrators on whom to pin conspiracies cooked up by the president. Ordinary citizens are being ensnared.

David Hearn, a man from Maryland, was one of them. In June, U.S. Park Police officers and National Guardsmen were deployed to patrol the reflecting pool, under pressure to prove the president’s claim that “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE” intentionally destroyed its lining. Mr. Hearn, passing through the National Mall on his bike, stopped to put his hand in the water. He was arrested on the spot and later charged with felony destruction of property.

The case against Mr. Hearn crumbled when prosecutors were forced to substantiate it with evidence. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, had to dismiss the indictment — earning the ire of the president — but only after Mr. Hearn was thrust into the national spotlight and painted as an enemy of America. In a news release, Ms. Pirro had said Mr. Hearn’s “deliberate acts of destruction” were “an affront to our shared history and the dignity of our national heritage.”

Most Americans didn’t fear for our personal safety when the Justice Department came for James Comey, Mark Kelly and Letitia James, the New York attorney general. These were professional political actors who chose to be in the national spotlight. Of course, no one should be subjected to a frivolous or vindictive criminal investigation. But they were people the president viewed as enemies. Now, he’s getting desperate and targeting civilians.

So far, the courts have consistently rejected Trump’s politically motivated prosecutions. Most Americans can see these cases for what they are: flimsy and pathetic — a sign of  Trump’s weakness. As Mr. Hearn and Mr. Seei experienced firsthand, the Donald Trump's control of the levers of justice has the potential to do great damage, even if the charges ultimately don’t stick.

The solution is for those in Trump’s orbit to stop enabling him, (like, for example, Senator Susan Collins❗💥) 

Of course, that’s unlikely to happen. Trump is now relying, to an unusual degree, on a revolving cast of opportunistic political appointees. The flagging career work force has been increasingly marginalized, as leadership is demanding total loyalty and is aggressively squashing dissent.

Mr. McCotter, the acting deputy attorney general, warned that “the actions of even one malicious actor” can undercut the security of our democratic elections. He’s not wrong — but what his news conference illustrated is that the malicious actors are the ones inside our government.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans misusing our tax money to pay for wasteful media propaganda

Los Angeles Times opinion to the editor: The Trump administration appears to have forgotten that the U.S. Treasury is not a limitless money pot to spend on anything it pleases. It is at best unethical to use the weight of the federal government to support a political campaign, and it may be illegal too (“Call it propaganda or a PSA, Trump’s latest ad blitz is paid for by you,” Sept. 26). 

Would anyone in the Trump administration approve of a theoretical Newsom administration using our tax money in this way❓I think not — it would rightly be called corrupt and problematic.

If this qualifies as an apolitical “public service announcement” just because Trump is not on the ballot, then I suppose no issue advocacy ads are political, either, even though we can always discern which party they are intended to support.

Donald Trump, it is a dangerous game to play the American people for fools (and to waste their money), especially when your majority is on the line in November. You can start to make amends by pulling this ad off the air and doing one of the things you do best — firing the person who came up with this abysmal idea.

From Charlie Henry in Palm Desert, California

Susan Collins supported cuts to Medicaid so she and rich friends can have more tax cuts but Maine maternity care is harmed by her vote

The continuing closure of Maine’s rural maternity wards makes me wish there was someone I could grab by the collar and shake a little and go, “This is why we shouldn’t be treating healthcare as a consumer good instead of a public investment for a functional, healthy society!”

Maine’s rural maternity wards require a mindset shift, by Victoria Hugo-Vidal

All three candidates for Maine governor said that rural maternity closures are something that they’re going to work on. But what’s their plan❓ 

Echo opinion published in the Portland Press Herald, Maine.

I would have to shake an awful lot of collars❗

The reason rural hospitals keep closing down maternity wards is money. 💰💸💲America doesn’t think of healthcare as a right, or a social investment. 

Rather, healthcare is treated like a consumer good, like any other, so if the market won’t support its presence, businesses stop offering it.

Healthcare providers need to make money in order to keep their doors open. Even nonprofits like MaineHealth, which don’t need to worry about a rate of return for investors expecting profit, need to at least break even to continue providing those services (and those suspiciously beefy executive salaries, of course).

Pretty much everyone agreed that having maternity care and birthing hospitals in rural areas is important for the health and safety of mothers and babies, as well as for the community in general.

As one of the protesters against the closure of Miles Hospital’s maternity ward in Damariscotta pointed out, “What happens if you can’t be born in a community, you can only die there❓”

But what’s the solution❓ MaineHealth magics up more money❓ Maybe "robs Peter to pay Paul" and cuts services elsewhere in the system? The population of Lincoln County isn’t going to suddenly and immediately explode to the point where a fee-for-service birth center model is viable.

All three candidates for governor have said that rural maternity closures are something that they’re going to work on and stop from happening, but what’s their plan❓

I mean, all Republicans know how to do when there’s a problem is cut taxes, 🙄😬💥which isn’t going to help in this situation. Democrats are probably more interested in directly helping by subsiding a hospital, but for how long❓ How much❓

(Maine Senator Susan Collins supported cuts to Medicaid❗)

Our system isn’t set up for ongoing state subsidy through direct payments like that. Plus, there are a ton of competing budget commands and local moms don’t have a small army of well-paid lobbyists to prowl the halls of the State House. And then you’d get people complaining that they shouldn’t have to pay for maternity care if they can’t get pregnant.

I don’t think the reason we don’t have a universal healthcare system in America is the concept of “Ooh, government healthcare scary.” 

Although some people think that way, but we already have examples of both government-run direct healthcare — the VA — and government- provided health insurance programs, in Medicare and Medicaid. Those programs could certainly use some improvement, but they are very much present and functional and the citizens who benefit are generally satisfied.

No, the reason we don’t have it is because Americans are obsessed with this idea of “deserving.” We don’t want “OUR” taxes paying for “THEIR” healthcare. Who “they” are changes from person to person, of course. (Meanwhile, the sad truth is your taxes are mostly going to defense contractors’ accounts.) 
Think about roads, right❓ A long time ago American leaders all decided that in order for us to have a healthy, thriving society and economy, we needed roads connecting us, from dirt paths to superhighways. So, we made it happen, and everyone contributes, and everyone can use the roads.

You don’t have a subscription to roads through your employer. You don’t get road access on a marketplace. You can still drive on them if you’re poor. They’re funded by our taxes (including, yes, tolls). People don’t get mad that other people they don’t like, or who have made choices they disapprove of, get to use the roads. (Well, other than the usual road rage.) And yes, I know that lots roads are terribly maintained; my family used to play “Buxton Slalom” with potholes in our hometown. This isn’t my most perfect metaphor.

The problem is not just electing politicians who are willing to put in the work to build us a universal healthcare system, although of course we have to do that too. We have to change our view of what healthcare is for. Is it for profit generation, or is it a social good❓

If it’s a social good that we need for a functioning society, can we come to terms with the fact that, yes, “your” taxes may be paying for services that you don’t directly benefit from because our society as a whole would really benefit from having that health system.

Until then, rural facilities are just going to keep shutting down, no matter how important they are to their communities, no matter how many lives are at stake.