U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he departs Walter Reed National Military Medical Center following his annual physical exam, in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S., October 10, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
White House correspondent Andrew Egger tells The Bulwark that one of the most insidious things about Donald Trump’s decade-long turn atop our politics is the way “we seem to be losing some of our inability even to feel the shock.”
“You could see this in some of the early reactions last night to the news of Letitia James’s indictment on two counts of mortgage fraud,” said Egger. “The New York attorney general has been near the top of Trump’s enemies list for a while, and literally nobody … seems to be trying to argue that this indictment isn’t an act of naked political retribution.”
“Instead, the Republican line — parroted by some who should really know better — is that this is a justified act of retribution, in some sort of street-justice sense,” Egger said. “Or if not justified, at least understandable, from Trump’s point of view: They tried to get him, now he’s trying to get them. Most charitably, they say, it is an unfortunate tit-for-tat that can’t go on indefinitely — but also a situation in which Trump is just one bad actor in a cast of many.”
Even the Washington Post printed an editorial partially justifying Trump’s lawfare: “Many Democrats still cannot see how their legal aggression against Trump during his four years out of power set the stage for the dangerous revenge tour on which he is now embarked.”
James had shown “little restraint” in her investigations, according to the Post, which explains why Trump is “showing still less restraint” in using the Department of Justice to strike back.
“We should be clear about this,” said Egger. “There is no comparison between the acts Letitia James took as attorney general of New York to hit Trump’s companies and the ones he is now taking to hit ‘back’ at her.
James’ “fundamental case … was not unreasonable,” argued Egger. “It was rooted in sworn testimony Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen had made before Congress that Trump habitually inflated the value of his properties to get favorable treatment in loans. She won her civil case against Trump at trial.”
Trump even had his day in court to argue before the court that James’ investigations into him were politically motivated, and the courts tossed out his argument.
“Now consider Trump,” said Egger. “As he staffed out his administration with lickspittles and cronies, he didn’t just instruct them to look into James to see what they could rustle up. Instead, he twisted the entire federal government into a shape designed to produce the criminal indictment he demanded.”
Trump didn’t even come by the mortgage-fraud claim he’s lobbing at James honestly, said Egger. They were the end product of a “fishing expedition carried out by Bill Pulte, who has used the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which he directs, as a databank to plumb for information on a host of Trump enemies.”
“This isn’t Trump escalating a fight James started,” Egger argued. “It’s Trump being Trump the only way he knows how: smashing, smashing, and smashing until the last irritating opponent is gone from his sight.”
Read the Bulwark report at this link.