Letters from an American - Weaponizing the Department of Justice

Episode Date: May 30, 2026

May 28, 2026Trump is treating the nation’s capital as his property, Trump is lashing out, filing suits against E. Jean Carroll and the Wall Street Journal, Grand juries as well as judges are losing faith in the Department of Justice, Trump appears to be focused on corrupt dealings that benefit him and his family, Thirty-five former federal judges have challenged the slush fund set up by Trump and his MAGA loyalists and the notion that they had reached a “settlement agreement” with the Department of Justice, The judges wrote: “… the parties’ settlement was not, and never will be, legally justified.”Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

May 28, 26. It's an excellent bet that future books and films made about the Trump era will begin with an image of the White House this week. The world-famous Rose Garden has been replaced with a patio that looks like the one at Mar-a-Lago. The east wing is rubble. And on the sweeping south lawn, right outside the front door of the White House, construction is underway on a massive ultimate fighting championship arena for K. page matches to be held on Trump's 80th birthday. Now treating the nation's capital as his property, Trump appears to be leaning on his past role as a real estate developer, as a solution in Iran remains elusive, inflation in the U.S. climbs, and his popularity drops. In addition to turning

back to real estate, Trump seems to be lashing out to reassert his dominance over those who have hurt him. Last night, Hannah Rabinowitz, Paula Reid, and Kara Scannell reported that the Department of Justice under President Donald J. Trump has launched a criminal investigation into whether 82-year-old E. Jean Carroll, the journalist who successfully sued Trump for defamation and for sexual assault, committed perjury in her testimony by saying she was not being paid to launch the lawsuit, when it turned out later that billionaire Reid Hoffman had paid some of her legal fees and expenses. Trump also refiled his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal over its publication of an article describing a card for sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday.

The card shows a crude sketch of a girl, bearing words that refer to certain things in common and saying, A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret. Trump's lawsuit says that the article damaged his reputation and that the card is fake, although it came from Epstein's estate. The estate later provided a copy of the card to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which published it on its own website. U.S. District Judge Darren P. Gales tossed out the arrest of the Arirms.

lawsuit last month, saying that Trump came nowhere close to establishing that the article's authors acted with actual malice to defame him, but said Trump could amend the lawsuit and refile it. Yesterday, he did. On Tuesday, Alan Fuhr of the New York Times noted that Trump's politicization of the Department of Justice means grand juries as well as judges appear to be losing faith in the department. Although it is a common saying that prosecutors can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, government prosecutors have had trouble getting the indictments Trump wants against his perceived political enemies. In part, this is because Trump has replaced career prosecutors with inexperienced loyalists, as fewer notes, but it's also because of trumped-up charges against people like

former FBI director James Comey and the six Democratic lawmakers who released a public video reminding military and intelligence personnel that they must not obey illegal orders. Federal judges have been accusing prosecutors of misconduct, most recently in a case last week in Chicago, in which a grand jury indicted six people, including a Democratic congressional candidate, for interfering with a federal agent and conspiring to interfere with a federal agent at a protest at a detention facility. As Julie Bosman of the New York Times reported, U.S. District Judge April Perry dismissed the case after she discovered that prosecutors had talked to individual grand jurors outside the courtroom and removed those jurors who refused to indict, as well as apparently overstating the strength

of the evidence against the defendants. After making these maneuvers, the prosecutors then tried to hide evidence of them by redacting the transcripts from the grand jury. Judge Perry said, I have read hundreds, if not thousands, of grand jury transcripts involving prosecutors who are the most junior of prosecutors to several U.S. attorneys who appeared before the grand jury. I have never seeing the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts. If Trump can end the rule of law, he can do as he wishes. At least some of what he appears to want is corrupt dealings that put money into the pockets of himself and his family members. Today, Robert Federici of ProPublica reported that Trump's trade advisor, Peter Navarro,

personally pressured the Pentagon to loaned some of the public. $620 million to Vulcan elements, a small North Carolina startup company in which Donald Trump Jr. has a financial stake. Navarro and Don Jr. appear to be close, and a Pentagon official told Faderici that the call came from the White House. We have to get this done. According to Faderici, the Pentagon invested $620 million in Vulcan, a rare earth magnet company. and another $80 million in its partner, Re-Element. The Commerce Department provided another $50 million in incentives, and the government took a $50 million stake in Vulcan.

When Trump Jr.'s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, invested in Vulcan in August 2025, the company was worth about $200 million. After the government investments, that valuation jumped to around $2 billion, dollars. Bloomberg reported last week that the investment in re-element might not go through because of concerns over its ability to scale up its technology. A spokesperson for the Pentagon told Faderici that the Vulcan deal was sped up as defense officials balance lightning speed with

rigorous diligence to close high-impact deals that directly strengthen America's defense and empower our war fighters. And yet, despite their evident attempt to warp the U.S. legal system to their own purposes, Trump and his MAGA loyalists insist that they are the ones against whom the Department of Justice has been used. That is their justification for the $1.776 billion slush fund for paying off those who were convicted of crimes for their participation in Trump's schemes to over. overturned the results of the 2020 presidential election. Last night, a group of 35 former federal judges took on that slush fund. As Megan Vasquez of the Washington Post reported, the former judges, appointed by members of both political parties, asked U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams to reopen

the legal case, Trump, his oldest sons, and the Trump Organization brought against against the Internal Revenue Service or IRS for a judicial review of the extraordinary and historically unprecedented circumstances presented by this litigation and by the collusive settlement that invokes this litigation as the legal justification for its terms. Trump, his sons, and the Trump organization dropped the lawsuit after Williams appeared to question whether it was actually a legitimate lawsuit, since Trump was both the plaintiff and the person in charge of the IRS, then announced they had reached a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice. Williams was clear in her order closing the case that there was no settlement of record in it.

The judges expressed concern that the Trump's were manipulating the judicial system, which threatens to undermine confidence in the administration of justice. They suggested that this case that the parties purport to have settled is itself a fraud on the court. They also maintain that this settlement is a product of collusion, and is itself a fraud on the court, and that fraud on the court is established. by clear and convincing evidence. The parties have used this lawsuit, which was never an adversarial proceeding

over which the court even had jurisdiction, as a means to allow a commission, controlled by the president, to dole out $1.776 billion in taxpayer dollars without constitutional or congressional authority to do so, and to confer unlawful private benefits to the president and his family by purportedly prohibiting the United States from prosecuting any and all claims against them. To be clear, the judges wrote, the party's settlement was not and never will be legally justified. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts. Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.