25 November—Donald Trump needed to win last year’s election for three reasons, here listed in no specific order: to reinflate his incredibly fragile narcissistic ego that had been embarrassingly and painfully (for him, at any rate) deflated by Joe Biden’s decisive, rather impressive—seven million popular vote and 74 electoral vote—victory in 2020; to avoid the embarrassment, expense, and possible (but not likely) prison sentence(s) resulting from his aberrant, abhorrent, unlawful, in all events thoroughly disgraceful behavior before, during, and after his first term in office; to exact revenge on all the institutions and individuals of any consequence who were at all critical or otherwise disrespectful of him in any way and at any time, but especially his past and future terms in public office—i.e., then and now.

Trump’s primary weapon in exacting revenge is his depoliticized and deweaponized department of justice, managed and (after undeserved firings and regrettable but understandable retirements) largely staffed by inexperienced and incompetent but—the only thing that matters to Trump—unswervingly loyal flunkies appointed by him and, where necessary, confirmed by the Trumpublican Senate majority.

Given the ineptitude and sheer incompetence of Trump’s DOJ, then, is it any wonder that the totally trumped-up case against Jim Comey, the FBI director Trump fired for doing his job, was tossed—by a judge guided by loyalty to law rather than Trump?

Comey put it this way: “I’m grateful that the court ended the case against me, which was a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence and a reflection of what the Department of Justice has become under Donald Trump, which is heartbreaking. But I was also inspired by the example of the career people who refuse to be part of this travesty. It cost some of them their jobs, which is painful, but it preserved their integrity, which is beyond price.

“The President of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies. I don’t care what your politics are, you have to see that as fundamentally un-American and a threat to the rule of law that keeps all of us free. I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again, and my attitude is going to be the same. I’m innocent. I am not afraid. And I believe in an independent federal judiciary, a gift from our founders, that protects us from a would-be tyrant.”

Donald Trump’s press cutie already has made it clear that her boss hasn’t given up on persecuting Jim Comey.

And, sad to say, Jim Comey’s last sentence is more wishful than realistic because—as he must be aware—Donald Trump is well past the would-be tyrant stage and has become a fully developed malignant despot who has, among other evils, effectively vitiated the independence of too much of the federal judiciary by packing it with judges whose primary qualification isn’t respect for the Constitution or the law. Thus the Trump federal judiciary is the scumbag’s second line of offense . . .