To the casual observer, the events of this past week might seem like a disjointed series of grievances. There are the arrests of the journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort; the selective release of the Epstein files; and the threat of a lawsuit against the author Michael Wolff. But seen through the lens of a Justice Department now run by the President’s own former defense team, these are not separate incidents. They are connected. In fact, they are the same project: the forced retirement of the First Amendment.
In the case of Michael Wolff, the President is attempting to litigate his way out of a history that his own DOJ is tasked with “debunking.” Wolff, armed with a $800,000 legal fund and a trove of Epstein recordings, has dared to suggest that the “absolution” found in the three million pages of released files is a mirage. The archive is managed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche–both former Trump attorneys. It dismisses claims of “19th-hole burials” as sensationalist fodder. Yet it cannot redact the “dog that hasn’t barked”: the records that place the President at the center of the Epstein milieu. He has spent a decade compulsively lying his way out of that scandal.
But if the strategy with Wolff is litigation, the strategy with Lemon and Fort is something more far more primal. Indeed, their arrests in connection with a Minnesota protest represent a chilling escalation of state power. After two federal judges refused to sign arrest warrants–citing a total lack of evidence that the journalists were anything more than witnesses–the DOJ simply bypassed the judiciary. Instead, it secured a grand jury indictment and deployed federal agents to a Beverly Hills hotel and a family home in Minnesota. By doing so, Bondi has sent a clear message: the court’s permission is no longer required.
The weaponization of the FACE Act—a law designed to protect reproductive health—to arrest journalists for filming a protest is the kind of legal gymnastics that would make anyone but an autocrat blush. When the White House social media account mocked Lemon’s arrest with a chain emoji, it stripped away any remaining pretense of impartial justice.
For this administration, reality distortions are a substitute for facts, and the DOJ is its enforcer. Whether it is the selective editing of the Epstein files, the erasure of minority groups from the American story, or the felony charging of the reporters who document the administration’s ICE siege in Minnesota, the goal is the same. It is to ensure that the only version of history that survives is the one signed by the President’s lawyers.
Photo by Palinchak / Deposit Photos
Further Reading
- Gambino, Lauren. (2026, Jan. 21). American Democracy of the brink a year after Trump’s inauguration, experts say. The Guardian.
- Lee, Bandy X. (2024, Sept. 2) The Psychology of Trump Contagion: An Existential Danger to American Democracy and All Humankind. World Mental Health Coalition, Inc.
- Malkin, C., Gourguechon, P., et al. (2017, Oct. 3). The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess A President. Thomas Dunne Books.
- Hassan, Steven. (2020, Sept. 1). The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control. Free Press.
