President Donald Trump's latest move against his political opponents unleashed a torrent of warnings that the lame duck is spiraling.
On Saturday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he was "ordering the Department of Justice to look into this criminal act, immediately!" He accused Democrats of threatening the attorney general and others with impeachment, calling it "extortion at the highest level," and suggested that imprisonment "should be against these EXTORTIONISTS." He also singled out Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), claiming without evidence that she plans to go after young Republicans.
Independent journalist Aaron Rupar summed up the post as Trump calling for Democrats who sent oversight letters to be imprisoned and directing top Justice Department official Todd Blanche to open an investigation.
Michael Kasdan, an attorney and NYU Law professor, warned that with loyalists installed across the Justice Department, the FBI and every executive agency, Trump is "going to fight against Congress and the American people like a caged animal."
Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann argued that Stephen Miller had fueled what he called Trump's "Bunker End Game" mentality, describing the "broken, bitter Lame Duck president" as threatening lawmakers for doing their constitutional job.
"This will end poorly for the junta," Olbermann added.
Slotkin herself fired back, accusing Trump of having Miller, whom she noted had just been elevated to chief of staff, "draft a tweet threatening to put me in jail." The Michigan Democrat added the administration already tried to indict her before a grand jury in February and said Trump's "hair-trigger obsession" with corruption "reveals more about you [than] it does about me."
Politico legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney pointed out that Congress has every right to conduct aggressive oversight and threaten impeachment, yet Trump is now pushing for a criminal probe of lawmakers who do exactly that.
Gregg Nunziata, a former Republican Senate counsel, recalled that his first major public break with Trump came when the White House rejected the basic idea of congressional oversight during the first term.
"This is worse," he declared.
The progressive MeidasTouch network called the move another impeachable offense, insisting, "Oversight isn't extortion. It's the Constitution."