Over Easter, Matt Ford suggested Donald Trump might one day soon be hunted down by the International Criminal Court and put on trial like a mass-murdering warlord from the Balkans or the Congo.
“There will be no post-presidential peace for Donald Trump,” Ford thundered in the pages of The New Republic, before providing a litany of high crimes and misdemeanours that would justify a meeting with fate at the Hague.
“The shuttering of the Kennedy Center may be the least of Trump’s second-term sins,” Ford opined.
“In the first year since returning to power, Trump and his subordinates have pushed the country toward fascism and oligarchy. He has turned Washington into an orgy of corruption and self-dealing beyond even the most cynical observer’s imagination. He has transformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol into a lawless paramilitary force that has besieged American cities and killed at least five U.S. citizens and 22 foreign nationals. He has abused Americans and their immigrant neighbors alike simply because he can.”
Given everything that happened to Donald Trump during his first term and then the four long years of the Biden presidency, it should come as no shock that his enemies are already thinking of ways they can punish him, his family and his supporters as soon as they have the power to do so.
The plan for retribution—and there is a plan, rather than just a diffuse sense that Trump must be punished—is now taking shape under the rubric of “Project 2029.” The name is a knowing wink towards the Heritage Foundation and its Project 2025, which set the agenda for the second Trump administration in so many different ways. Although the main focus is on 2029—there’s still no clear frontrunner to lead the party at the moment, with recent polls suggesting Gavin Newsom might not be the favourite—a win at the midterms will allow the process of retribution to begin in earnest.
Back at Easter, there were some intimations of exactly what might happen if November goes the Democrats’ way, but now Reuters has added some real meat to the bone.
According to Reuters, “Senior Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and committee aides have discussed using hearings, subpoenas and document requests to obtain records from entities tied to Trump’s political and business orbit... It is a bet that investigating private companies and outside financial players will prove more fruitful than directly confronting a White House they expect to resist oversight.”
Impeachment, that bluntest of weapons, is out. Democrats have finally learned their lesson, it seems. They know impeachment is unlikely to succeed and that President Trump will be able to turn proceedings to his advantage, portraying himself as the victim of a merciless witch-hunt (imagine that!).
“No one wants a failed vote on day one,” a senior Democrat aide said.
“The focus is on building a body of evidence through investigations that can hold Trump accountable.”
A number of major companies have already been singled out. Among them are Apple, Alphabet, Blackstone, BlackRock and Palantir. No surprise, companies owned by Elon Musk—whose support was instrumental in returning Trump to the White House and who oversaw the Department of Government Efficiency—are also targets.
Reuters continues, “Democrats are expected to examine Department of Homeland Security contracts, financing for Trump’s planned White House ballroom, corporate donors and alleged pay-to-play arrangements, two sources said. They also plan a probe of Trump-linked financial vehicles including 1789 Capital—a venture capital firm where his son Donald Trump Jr. is a partner—and foreign sovereign wealth funds whose investments in Trump family-linked entities could raise questions about administration influence, the sources said.”
Party leaders have now begun sending out letters in advance of subpoenas after the midterms. These include requests for information from Paramount Skydance about its dealings with the Trump administration and the proposed Warner Bros. Discovery deal. They want information about Alphabet’s $24.5 million settlement with President Trump, and they also want answers from private prison operator GEO Group and security company Salus Worldwide Solutions about their contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. Commodity traders have been asked about sales of Venezuelan oil since Nicolas Maduro was deposed in January.
At this stage, of course, the letters have no power, and the recipients are in no way compelled to respond. But they serve as signals of intent, warnings that the price of cooperation with the Trump administration could be about to increase steeply. As a strategy, it’s likely to have some effect, and given Trump’s current low favourability rating, largely thanks to the Iran war, the warning will be felt. The Democrats have reason to be confident.
Republicans will be campaigning on accountability too, albeit of a different sort. In the last couple of days, we’ve also learned the GOP will focus on the Democrat party’s violent lurch towards the left or “communism” as President Trump has described it, and on the inability or unwillingness of the party’s leaders to stop it.
According to Axios, via Republican sources, the party is going to tell America, “but they’re worse.”
“Yeah, you’ve got your gripes with us—maybe you’re still pissed about the price of gas, maybe you think things went too far in Minneapolis, maybe you’re just tired of Donald Trump—but trust us, they’re worse. Much worse.”
