Democrats’ next lawfare operation will only get worse

We already know about Jack Smith’s sweeping indictments of President Trump on flimsy charges and many of the operation’s other abuses, including the secret seizure of phone records from Republican lawmakers, the review of text messages involving 44 members of Congress, and subpoenas seeking records on at least 430 Republican individuals and entities. This week, we also found out that Smith’s team of lawfare operators spied on nearly 50 journalists. They seized copies of 4,782 checks written by Americans who donated to Trump and Republican groups, exposing donors’ names, home addresses, bank and routing numbers, and signatures. These were ordinary Americans dragged into the lawfare simply because they wrote a check to support a political candidate. Smith also swept up records of people who had run pro-Trump ads. The sheer extent of the intrusions and abuses is incredible.

With the help of FBI Director James Comey and CIA Director John Brennan, the fabricated narrative became a federal operation, using investigations, surveillance warrants, leaks, and a special counsel to try first to defeat candidate Trump and, when that failed, to remove him from office. The operation targeted not just Trump, but the people around him. Campaign figures, journaalists, conservative political organizations, advisers, lawyers, associates, people with only loose connections to Trump, and thousands of ordinary Americans whose only connection was making perfectly legal political donations, many for tiny amounts, were dragged into the investigation. They faced legal bills, public smears, professional ruin, bankruptcy, and, in some cases, prison. The purpose was to isolate Trump, cripple his ability to govern, and make anyone who stood with him pay a price. It largely succeeded.

The point must be unmistakably understood: the Democrats will try again. The next operation will be more sophisticated, more sweeping, and more ruthless. It will borrow every method used before and build new ones around them. Much time has already been wasted in the second Trump term, leaving only a narrow window to prepare for what might come after the 2026 midterms or in 2029.