'I know you are, but what am I?' Trump’s revenge mocked by legal experts

Legal analysts are collectively rolling their eyes and responding with ridicule after President Donald Trump's administration assigned longtime ally Ed Martin to serve as a special counsel to investigate Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump alleged that the DOJ was being "weaponized" to go after him after he stole classified documents and refused to return them, and he attempted to overturn the 2020 election. In this case, Trump's pledge for "retribution" and "revenge" has come to target those he believes are his foes.

The Atlantic's legal commentator Quinta Jurecic cited the CNN report on the matter, which says, "A grand jury investigation into James also convened in Albany, New York, according to a source familiar. The grand jury probe into James is said to be looking into deprivation of rights, which means violating someone's constitutional rights, against Trump."

"My instinct is that they're going with deprivation of rights under section 242 because Trump was prosecuted under section 241, and this administration operates according to the venerable legal principle of 'I know you are, but what am I,'" wrote Jurecic on Bluesky.

She went on to cite the New York Times report, which said, "It is a highly unusual use of civil rights law more typically used to investigate potential racial, religious or sex discrimination, among other categories."

As Jurecic characterized, "This is not really how the statute works."

Former Justice Department appointee Eric Columbus said he wondered "what’s the status of their mortgage fraud investigation against [James]. Unless I missed something, we haven’t heard about that in a while."

Jurecic replied that it was an example of "Spaghetti, wall, etc."

Constitutional scholar Robert Black commented, "I had this thought the other day when they were talking about going after Obama for 'election interference' or whatever, he latched onto that phrase as a Bad Thing after 2016 but he doesn't actually understand it or why it's bad."

National security analyst Marcy Wheeler pointed out that under Judge Aileen Cannon's ruling, appointing a special prosecutor to investigate James and Schiff "is patently illegal."

"All the better given that he was pointedly NOT confirmed," she added about Martin.