Well, folks, it’s October 9, 2026, and I’ve got a story for you this morning that you couldn’t make up if you tried.
The New York Times just published an extraordinary investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to use the United States Department of Justice to go after his political enemies.
And let me tell you something.
This thing has turned into a three-ring circus.
Except the clowns have law degrees, the tickets are paid for by taxpayers, and nobody seems to know where the hell the ringmaster is.
Now, here’s what’s going on.
For years, Donald Trump has claimed that everybody was out to get him.
The FBI was out to get him.
The CIA was out to get him.
Barack Obama was out to get him.
Hillary Clinton was out to get him.
Jack Smith was out to get him.
Hell, I’m surprised he hasn’t accused the Girl Scouts of conspiring against him.
So what does Trump do when he gets back into the White House?
He decides to investigate the investigators.
And not just one investigation.
No, no, no.
He wants to prove that all these different investigations, stretching back nearly ten years, were part of one gigantic conspiracy to destroy Donald Trump.
They actually call it the grand conspiracy investigation.
Sounds like the title of a bad Netflix series, doesn’t it?
But there’s one little problem.
They can’t seem to find the evidence.
And that’s where this story gets interesting.
According to The New York Times, the administration brought an 81-year-old attorney named Joseph diGenova out of retirement to lead this investigation.
Eighty-one years old!
Now, listen, I’m 69. I believe in second acts. Hell, I’m living one myself.
But when you bring somebody out of retirement to investigate a conspiracy involving half of Washington, you’d better have a pretty damn good plan.
Apparently, that plan was 190 pages long.
And it identified more than 50 supposed acts in this grand conspiracy.
Fifty!
That’s a lot of accusations.
But here’s something I learned a long time ago.
An accusation is not evidence. And suspicion is not proof.
You can write a thousand pages about something you believe happened.
But when you walk into a courtroom, you’ve got to prove it.
And that’s where this whole thing starts falling apart.
One experienced federal prosecutor reportedly reviewed the evidence against former CIA Director John Brennan and concluded that it didn’t support an indictment.
So what happened?
She was removed from the case.
Think about that.
A prosecutor examines the evidence, reaches a professional conclusion, and gets taken off the investigation.
Now, I don’t know everything that happened behind those closed doors.
But I know what that looks like.
It looks like somebody didn’t get the answer they wanted.
And that’s a dangerous road for any justice system to travel.
Because the job of a prosecutor isn’t to make the president happy.
The job of a prosecutor is to follow the evidence wherever it leads.
Sometimes that means bringing charges.
Sometimes that means walking away.
That’s how the system is supposed to work.
But apparently, walking away isn’t part of this particular business plan.
Now, the story gets even crazier.
The Justice Department has had trouble finding career prosecutors willing to work on this investigation.
So they’ve brought in military lawyers and attorneys from other offices.
Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney’s office in South Florida has been losing personnel.
According to the Times, an office that once had more than 200 lawyers is now down to a little more than half that number.
And here’s the part that really bothers me.
The health care fraud unit has been decimated.
Think about that for a minute.
We have people stealing money through health care fraud.
We have drug trafficking.
We have financial crimes.
We have real victims who need the protection of federal law enforcement.
And instead of concentrating all available resources on those problems, the Justice Department is pouring time and manpower into trying to prove a political conspiracy that, according to this reporting, has so far been extraordinarily difficult to substantiate.
Now, I’m not saying government officials should be above investigation.
Absolutely not.
If James Comey broke the law, investigate him.
If John Brennan broke the law, investigate him.
If Barack Obama broke the law, investigate him.
And if Donald Trump broke the law, investigate him too.
That’s the whole damn point!
Nobody is above the law.
Not Democrats.
Not Republicans.
Not presidents.
Nobody.
But there’s a world of difference between investigating a crime because you’ve discovered evidence and searching for a crime because you’ve already decided who you want to punish.
One is justice.
The other is revenge.
And when revenge becomes government policy, we’ve got a serious problem.
Now, here’s another fascinating part of this story.
The man Trump brought in to run the investigation, Joseph diGenova, ended up fighting with Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Apparently, diGenova wanted to pursue this massive conspiracy case against big-name political figures.
Blanche’s team wanted quicker results and narrower cases.
Things got so heated that diGenova reportedly threatened to have U.S. marshals remove prosecutors sent from Washington if they interfered with his grand jury proceedings.
Can you imagine?
You’ve got federal prosecutors threatening to throw other federal prosecutors out of the room!
These people are supposed to be investigating a conspiracy, and they can’t even agree on who’s running the investigation.
Eventually, diGenova resigned.
His deputy resigned too.
And now Washington has taken direct control.
Meanwhile, the investigation continues.
And the American taxpayer continues paying for it.
Now, here’s what I find especially troubling.
Even if this investigation never produces a single conviction, it can still inflict enormous damage.
People have to hire lawyers.
They have to defend themselves.
They can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars protecting their reputations and their freedom.
And that’s before anybody has proven they committed a crime.
Think about the chilling effect that creates.
What happens when a government official has to decide whether to investigate a powerful politician?
Does that official follow the evidence?
Or does that official think, “If I do my job, am I going to spend the next ten years defending myself?”
That’s not a hypothetical concern anymore.
That’s a question every American ought to be asking.
Because our justice system depends on people being willing to do their jobs without fear of political retaliation.
Now, I’ve lived long enough to see a lot of American history.
I remember Watergate.
I remember Richard Nixon.
And one of the lessons we were supposed to learn from that experience was that the presidency does not come with a personal police force.
The Department of Justice belongs to the American people.
Not the president.
Not the Republican Party.
Not the Democratic Party.
The American people.
And here’s what makes this so frustrating.
We’ve got enormous problems facing this country.
Housing affordability.
Health care.
Mental health.
Education.
Infrastructure.
The national debt.
Millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet.
And what are we spending our time talking about?
Whether Donald Trump can get even with people who investigated him years ago.
Good grief!
We’ve got a country to run!
We’ve got communities to rebuild!
We’ve got young people who can’t afford their first home!
And we’ve got an entire generation wondering whether the American dream is still available to them.
Those are the problems I want my government working on.
Not somebody’s personal revenge tour.
And let me finish with this.
I’m running for mayor of Greensboro, North Carolina.
And one thing I believe deeply is that public office is a public trust.
When somebody elects you to serve, they’re not handing you the keys to a kingdom.
They’re giving you a responsibility.
A responsibility to represent everybody.
Including the people who didn’t vote for you.
Including the people who criticize you.
And yes, including the people who investigate you when there’s legitimate reason to do so.
That’s democracy.
That’s accountability.
And that’s what separates a government of laws from a government of personalities.
Donald Trump has every right to defend himself.
He has every right to challenge accusations against him.
But the presidency is not a license to turn the Justice Department into a personal revenge machine.
And if we allow that principle to disappear, it won’t matter whether the next president is a Republican or a Democrat.
Because the precedent will already have been established.
And someday, somebody else will use it.
Justice is supposed to be blind.
Not blindfolded by politics.
Not directed by personal grudges.
And certainly not available to the highest bidder or the most powerful politician.
So here’s my message to Washington.
Enough with the revenge.
Enough with the conspiracy theories.
Enough with the political theater.
Do your damn jobs.
Because 340 million Americans have real problems that need solving.
And we didn’t elect anybody to spend four years settling old scores.
We elected them to govern.
It’s time to get back to work.
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