President Donald Trump speaks while U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Senior advisor to FIFA president Carlos Cordeiro stand near him, as he meets with the White House Task Force on the FIFA World Cup 2026 in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 17, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
A pair of legal experts slammed President Donald Trump for attempting to prosecute people who protest against his administration during a new podcast episode that aired on Friday.
The Trump administration is currently pursuing charges against a slate of protesters, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, and former FBI Director James Comey. The president has also threatened Democratic lawmakers who made a video telling U.S. military members that they don't have to follow illegal orders.
Benjamin Wittes, editor-in-chief at Lawfare, and Mona Charen, policy editor at The Bulwark, discussed these charges on a new episode of "The Mona Charen Show."
"That is a very deep abuse of power," Wittes said about Trump's attempt to prosecute James for mortgage fraud.
"It is so much ratcheting up the stakes here that not only is it immoral and evil for the government to bring a false criminal case against someone, but to do it against people for the simple act of criticizing the president, to do it just because you are a dissenter or you are a you are what he calls an enemy," Charen said. "That goes to the very heart of our most basic liberties."
"That was the case that Comey's lawyers were pressing on the federal judge, that if you look at the timeline of when Trump started making noises about prosecuting Comey, it was always in response to a speech that Trump didn't like," she added. "It was when Comey spoke out and criticized the president."
