DEMOCRACY WATCHTrump’s Targeting of “Enemies” Like James Comey Echoes FBI’s Dark History of Mass Surveillance, Dirty Tricks, and Perversion of Justice Under J. Edgar Hoover
As a candidate last year, Donald Trump promised retribution against his perceived enemies. As president, he is doing that. His campaign of vengeance will be helped by the FBI, the independence of which has been sacrificed by Director Kash Patel, who has, essentially, made the bureau an arm of the White House. It marks the first time since J. Edgar Hoover’s 48-year reign as FBI director that the FBI has been used to target people perceived to be political enemies.
As a candidate last year, Donald Trump promised retribution against his perceived enemies. As president, he is doing that.
At the Department of Justice, a “Weaponization Working Group” has a long list of Trump’s perceived enemies to investigate. And on the evening of Sept. 25, 2025, former FBI Director – and one of Trump’s prime targets – James Comey was indicted by a grand jury at the behest of a Trump loyalist, his former personal lawyer who was appointed a prosecutor less than a week before, despite no experience as a prosecutor, and who pushed for the charges against the advice of career prosecutors who said there was no basis for bringing them. The charges came after Trump publicly urged the Department of Justice to indict his adversaries, saying, “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”
At the FBI, director Kash Patel has conducted a political purge, firing the highest officials at the bureau and thousands of FBI agents who investigated alleged crimes by Trump as well as investigated participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riots.
It marks the first time since J. Edgar Hoover’s 48-year reign as FBI director that the FBI has targeted massive numbers of people perceived to be political enemies.
Trump’s recent fury showed how much he expects top officials in federal law enforcement to carry out his retribution.
He was enraged when Erik S. Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, decided there was insufficient evidence to charge two people Trump regards as enemies: Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“I want him out,” Trump angrily told reporters on Sept. 19, 2025. Siebert resigned, although Trump claimed he had fired him.
Trump’s most recent demands for retribution came soon after top adviser Stephen Miller’s vow to prosecute leftists in the “vast domestic terror movement” – that the administration blames, without evidence, for Charlie Kirk’s assassination – using “every resource we have.”
As the director of the FBI, Patel will likely be in charge of the investigations of perceived enemies generated by the Department of Justice and the White House. He already has sacrificed the bureau’s independence, making it essentially an arm of the White House.
