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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) declared that he has “no faith in Trump’s judicial system” following the administration’s indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
While appearing on Sunday’s episode of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Schumer accused the president of morphing the judicial system into his “own political fighter.”
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“I have no faith in Donald Trump’s judicial system. He has turned this judicial system to be his own political fighter, do what he wants politically, so that he tells them to go after people he doesn’t like,” he told host Kristen Welker. “He tells them to exonerate people that he likes. So many people are getting pardoned, and this and that.”
Claiming that Trump has “turned this Justice Department into his own political watchdog,” he added, “It’s horrible.”
Schumer then argued that “no president has done this,” adding, “This is what autocrats do. This is when Trump says he wants to be king to do it.”
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“When he says he doesn’t like Comey, look what happened there,” Schumer said of Comey, who was indicted last week on obstruction charges for allegedly making a false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding.
Comey’s indictment came shortly after Trump pushed the Justice Department to prosecute Comey. He also repeatedly called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate several of his other political foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif).
“Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, and Leticia???” Trump wrote in a Sep. 20 Truth Social post addressed to Bondi. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
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Schumer also slammed Trump for forcing out the prosecutor who resisted charging Comey and his political opponents. Former U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert resigned earlier this month after resisting pressure from the Trump administration to prosecute Comey and others.
Siebert was replaced by Trump’s former personal attorney, Lindsey Halligan, whom he appointed to be U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. She sought an indictment against Comey, a vocal critic of Trump, just days after she was appointed.
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“The prosecutor who he appointed said, ‘There’s not enough evidence to indict Comey.’ So he fired this prosecutor and put in someone who’d do whatever he wanted,” Schumer continued.
He added, “Trump’s done so many bad things to undermine our democracy, to undermine our norms. This is one of the very worst.”
Trump warned Friday that “there will be others” who will be prosecuted.
“It’s not a list, but I think there will be others,” Trump told CNN’s Kevin Liptak. “I mean, they’re corrupt. These were corrupt, radical left Democrats. … No, there will be others. That’s my opinion. They weaponized the Justice Department like nobody in history.”
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Trump continued: “What they’ve done is terrible, I hope, frankly, there are others because you can’t let this happen to a country.”
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance doubled down on Trump’s claims that others will be prosecuted while appearing on “Fox News Sunday.”
“There will certainly be more indictments coming over the next 3 1/2 years of the Trump administration, but we’re always going to let the law drive this stuff and the facts of the case, and not political motivations,” Vance said.
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Vance denied that Comey’s indictment was “all political.”
“And to the people that are saying this is all political, if you look at our track record in the Trump administration, there have been people who have been prosecuted who have been political allies who agree with our politics,” he said.