Trump Assassination Attempt Shows How Project 2025 Has Federal Law Enforcement in the Crosshairs
The GOP Plan to Defund and Radically Reject Justice
Amongst the cacophony online after news reports that Donald Trump had been shot on stage at a rally, one question stayed with me: How did this happen?
In my last post, I wrote that I saw Joe Biden in person two weeks before the disastrous debate. Biden spoke at Gun Sense University, a three-day conference for gun violence prevention volunteers across the country. The hotel where he was speaking was lined with secret service vehicles. No one was allowed to use the circle driveway at the hotel’s entrance or the side roads leading into it.
In my hotel room, I stuffed my hotel key and driver’s license in one pocket and my cell phone in another. We weren’t allowed to bring anything into the room. No purses, no backpacks, no bags of any kind. We’d been told to begin lining up to see Biden at 11 a.m., even though he wasn’t going to be speaking until 1:30.
As we lined up for security, we wondered if the buttons attached to our lanyards would set off the metal detectors. Just to be safe, a few people threw theirs away. The secret service agents were stern and fastidious. The sent us through the metal detectors one by one and then waved a wand over our bodies. Then we were sent to a large room with rows of boxed lunches that we had to consume while standing, waiting in line.
When they finally opened the doors so we could find our seats, they instructed us to throw our unfinished food and drinks in the trash. Some people sighed hungrily. They had been standing a long time, assuming they could eat when they found their seats. Now they faced Sophie’s Choice: lunch or a view of the president.
This thorough, no-nonsense, no-exceptions approach to safety is what I would expect for Trump’s political rallies, so it didn’t make sense to me that a shooter could even get within shooting distance of a former president.
I watched one video where a rally-goer described watching a young man casually climb a ladder to the rooftop.
“Was his gun visible?” a reporter asked.
“Oh yeah, it was easy to see,” he replied, adding he attempted to communicate the urgency of the situation to police, but nothing changed. Their response was too slow. Shots rang out a few minutes later.
Sidenote: As someone who has volunteered in gun violence prevention for years, it’s hard not to match the callousness we’ve been met with every time there has been a mass shooting tragedy. To the victims of yesterday’s shooting, I want to say, I not only send thoughts and prayers but also demands for gun reform that would prevent hate to be armed with a gun to easily take someone’s life. This was the 292 mass shooting of 2024, and we aren’t even halfway through July.
Ironically, Republicans, including Trump, want to butcher the same federal law enforcement agencies, the FBI and the ATF, that are investigating the assassination attempt against him.
House Republicans are playing out their dangerous anti-accountability agenda, voting to cut funding for federal prosecutors, anti-terrorism agents, and other federal police.
They voted to defund the FBI by $368 million, which will force the ouster of thousands of workers. The bill, in total, would eliminate nearly $1 billion in funding from the Department of Justice, and force huge reductions in federal prosecutors and other personnel who fight violent crime. This makes all of our communities less safe.
Others have called to completely shut down the agencies.
And this is just the beginning. Project 2025, Republicans’ radical wish-list for Trump if he’s re-elected, includes a plan to subvert the rule of law that has been in place for 248 years of U.S. history and use the Department of Justice for Trump’s personal agenda.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton famously said, “Donald Trump thinks that the Presidency is like some banana republic dictatorship where you can lock up your political opponents.”
She was right. Let’s not forget that, despite what he says, Project 2025 is Trump’s plan for America. It was authored by many of his top advisors and cabinet members. For example, the chapter on the Department of Justice was written by Gene Hamilton, who is the Vice-President and General Counsel of America First Legal Foundation. The America First Legal Foundation is a right-of-center nonprofit organization formed by former senior Trump White House advisor Stephen Miller.
Law enforcement agencies that are part of the DOJ: the FBI, the DEA, and the ATF. In the first few pages of Project 2025, the authors accuse those authorities of “woke ideologies,” but really they want to wither public trust in federal policing and prosecuting to make it easier to carry out Trump’s deranged plans. He has already said he will release all of the January 6 convicts if he is re-elected, and then use law enforcement to arrest his political enemies and politicize every part of the DOJ.
On the Project 2025 website, organizers are already searching for the sycophants who will erode the independence of the justice department and do Trump’s twisted bidding. They’re building a personnel database now.
If you click the apply link on the website, and give them your phone number (ick, don’t do this unless you’re really committed), you will be directed to a series of questions about political philosophy, passion for policy, and background.
Then it opens up a series of multiple choice questions in a drop down menu, and applicants are asked whether they agree or disagree.
One of the questions is: “The President should be able to advance his/her agenda through the bureaucracy without hinderance from unelected federal officials.”
That’s how they are vetting potential White House employees.
If this worries you, I’m with you. And unlike Trump, I don’t need a written reminder to tell people in distress that I am listening the way he did when he met with Parkland students.
We are mere steps away from becoming a country with a deranged, egomaniacal leader who uses military power to destroy long-held public institutions in his unquenchable thirst for unlimited power.
But we can stop it. Now is the time to tell your MAGA-loving friends and family members that Trump wants to kneecap the very agencies that worked to protect him at the rally yesterday and will investigate and prosecute anyone who was involved in the assassination attempt. Tell them law enforcement in America works best when it is non-partisan. Tell them we all deserve to be safe, be treated fairly, and have access to justice.
Onward, Democracy Defenders!
Just for poops and giggles I filled out the form, sorta. I didn't answer any of the essay questions though I really wanted to snark out. I don't think I have much of a chance of getting hired as I agreed with more immigration, national health care, and believing in more that two genders. But hope springs eternal.
We need to remember that Trump will throw anyone and everyone under the bus if it suits him (maybe... maybe... except for his daughter.)
And with the pardon of ALL the January 6th insurrectionists, even the violent offenders (about 2000 of them) Trump now has a Coalition of the Willing - His own Toy Militia. They'll probably lay their lives down for him. Well played, Donnie.