Dems Keep Promising To Throw Their Enemies In Prison. Believe Them

Democrats have every intention of restarting lawfare against President Donald Trump and his allies the very moment he leaves office, and Republicans need to start taking that threat seriously.

At a Thursday hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, where the sole witness was get-Trump lawfare specialist Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought bogus charges against Trump twice, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said the quiet part out loud in an exchange with Smith.

“Those indictments have been dismissed. Can they be re-brought or resurrected after this, after Trump leaves office?” Johnson asked.

“They were dismissed without prejudice,” Smith replied.

Johnson then pushed harder, stating, “So they can be re-filed, and he can be prosecuted after he leaves office. Is that correct?”

Smith declined to answer that question, but inherent in dismissing a case without prejudice is the ability to refile. Doing so merely put prosecution of Trump on hold while he has higher legal protections as president.

Other Democrats at the hearing danced around the issue.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., had an exchange with Smith suggesting the effort to get Trump is not over because Trump has yet to be “held accountable,” and that the future of the country will depend on going after him in order to maintain legitimacy:

JAYAPAL: “How would you describe the toll on our democracy if we do not hold a president accountable for attempting to steal an election?”

SMITH: “My belief is that if we do not hold the most powerful people in our society to the same standards of the rule of law, it can be catastrophic, because if they don’t have to follow the law, it’s very easy to understand why people would think they don’t have to follow the law as well.”

JAYAPAL: “What do you think the toll is for future elections and future presidents who try to steal an election?”

SMITH: “I think if we don’t hold people to account when they commit crimes, it sends a message that those crimes are okay, that our society accepts that. I believe that if we don’t call people to account when they commit crimes in this context, it can endanger our election process. It can endanger election workers, and ultimately, our democracy. The attack on this Capitol on January 6 was — and the Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, said this — it was an attack on the structure of our democracy.”

JAYAPAL: “And we could experience much worse results down the road if this happens again.”

It did not just stop at going after Trump himself, as Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., directed his ire to many of the people pardoned by Trump after being held in prison for years.

Trump is a “twice-impeached, convicted felon president who not only unleashed a mob against Congress and his own vice president, but has now pardoned and released into our communities hundreds of extremists, insurrectionists, and cop-beating felons who have proceeded to commit dozens more crimes against the American people since they were pardoned,” Raskin said.

Democrats at the hearing Thursday are far from the only ones who are calling to prosecute Trump, those who work in his administration, and his supporters after they regain power.

Left-wing “Jeopardy!” host Ken Jennings probably summed up best what Democrats expect of their elected officials: “The ‘prosecute the former regime at every level’ candidate has my vote in 2028.”

Jennifer Welch, the Democrat podcast host who seems to be a prominent voice on the left these days, said the same, stating, similarly to Jayapal, that it is the only way for national reconciliation.

“The blue tsunami means that Congress is going to haul Elon Musk, ‘Big Balls,’ and a bunch of other people’s *ss in front and say, ‘What crimes did you commit?’ and it’s gonna get really serious,” she said. “And the same with Trump, because I believe, and this is just my opinion, that Trump and all of the bottom-feeding morons surrounding him, and Elon Musk, and all the bottom-feeding clinger-onners that surround him — I think they commit crimes every day. And I think to reconcile all of this, it’s going to take hardcore — not integrity Democrats — ‘f*ck you’ Democrats, ‘f*ck you for f*cking over our country, we are serious about this, we are prosecuting, we are gonna uncover every document, every phone call, everything you did, we will be relentless about it.’ And that’s they mindset they’ve got to have. Because I think the electorate is going from, ‘We’ve got to get him out, but also we want accountability.’”

Jim Acosta, who interviewed Welch, nodded along and suggested that Democrats immediately pack the Supreme Court so that the immunity decision regarding Trump can be “overturned” in order to prosecute him.

But it is not just internet influencers who are saying this. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., put members of the Trump administration “on notice,” regarding immunity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, stating, “REMINDER: To all members of the Trump administration. The incitement and engagement in state violence against the American people is a serious crime. Donald Trump will leave office long before the five-year statute of limitations expires. You are hereby put on notice.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., said the same thing, stating Trump is “not going to be president forever,” and prosecutions can come in the future.

Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., flanked by Reps. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Al Green, D-Texas, called for the prosecution of federal immigration law enforcement and the impeachment of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and “every single ‘fascist’ leader.”

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said something similar, and actually called for left-wing agitators to film ICE operations so that the footage could be used as evidence in prosecution of the agents.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said that Democrats will not even have to wait until Trump is out of office, so long as they get a House majority back, and that they intend to go after Trump’s family as well.

An impeachment is almost certain if Democrats get the House back, but as Crockett described, they will throw anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks in order to get Trump and administration officials.

They are guaranteed to just invent nonsense out of whole cloth and interpret statutes to mean things that they clearly do not, in exactly the same way that Smith did in his lawfare exercise.

“Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, for example, has said, ‘Jack Smith has a reputation for stretching criminal statutes beyond the breaking point,’” Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., pointed out at Thursday’s hearing. It was a sentiment “echoed by the United States Supreme Court … criticizing [Smith’s] boundless interpretation of the federal criminal statute at issue” in a separate case.

But that flippant regard for the rule of law will be representative of the entire Democrat Party if and when they get power back.

Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. As an investigative journalist, he previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.