The shoes that don't fit

When sycophancy pays, officials will trip over themselves — in footwear and in court

Kyle Mazza - UNF News via CNP/Shutterstock

Autocratic leaders around the world often use prosecution strategically — neutralizing some opponents and sending a signal to others, while preserving just enough credibility in the justice system to remain useful. Early in this term, Donald Trump and his loyalists appeared to be following this playbook. They targeted perceived opponents for technical legal violations like errors on mortgage applications, the kind of colorable but minor infractions that authoritarian regimes have long used to sideline rivals. Charges like these can be just plausible enough to keep some would-be detractors from speaking up.

That pretense is gone. In its place are ambitious displays of performative loyalty by subordinates.

The DOJ’s reported investigation into Reid Hoffman’s nonprofit is the latest example. Prosecutors are investigating American Future Republic over its funding of E. Jean Carroll’s civil lawsuits against Trump — cases in which Carroll won $5 million in 2023 and $83.3 million in 2024.

The investigation has two targets. Hoffman is the primary one — a warning to major donors who might fund similar challenges to Trump. But the 82-year-old Carroll is in the crosshairs, too, in what appears to be nothing more than vengeance for her successful litigation against the president. The prosecutors’ theory centers on a 2022 deposition in which Carroll said she was receiving no outside funding. This ploy didn’t work at trial — the judge found no credibility issue and barred Trump’s lawyers from raising it, and the Second Circuit upheld that ruling on appeal. The DOJ is now trying to do what two courts already refused. Whatever the legal theory, the veneer is transparent: This is what punishment looks like when it’s no longer trying to hide.

Read more — No attorney general can deliver on Trump’s retaliation agenda

Seashells and sycophants

The second indictment of James Comey follows a similar pattern — one we outline in more detail in our tracker of this administration’s retaliatory prosecutions.

In Comey’s case, prosecutors have abandoned even a pretense of legitimacy. The DOJ is accusing the former FBI director of threatening the president’s life because he posted a photo over a year ago of seashells on a beach arranged to look like the numbers “86 47.” In the restaurant industry, “86” means to take something off the menu. Trump is the 47th president.

The DOJ is alleging that restaurant slang is a literal blueprint for violence. Comey, of course, is not a tactical threat to the president’s life; he is a retired official with a Substack. A former DOJ official dubbed this the “worst case” filed in their lifetime. Legal analysts like CNN’s Laura Coates have called it “laughable.” But seriousness isn’t the point.

Read more — Tracking retaliatory use of arrests, prosecutions, and investigations by the Trump administration

As we’ve noted before, prosecutions like these are performative acts of loyalty-signaling. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is auditioning to keep the role full-time by demonstrating a willingness to pursue charges irrespective of facts and law. Blanche recently made his personal priorities clear when addressing the uncertainty over who will lead the DOJ permanently. If President Trump “chooses to nominate me, that’s an honor,” Blanche told reporters. And if not? “I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’”

The serious consequences of comical behavior

The instinct for visible fealty has trickled down from the courtroom to the very shoes officials wear. Senior officials like JD Vance and Marco Rubio have started wearing identical Florsheim leather wingtips because the president likes them — even if the shoes don’t actually fit. In this administration, mimicking the president’s taste is a more valuable professional asset than actually being able to walk comfortably in one’s own shoes.

While it might seem laughable, performative flattery has serious consequences. Targets of farcical cases must still hire counsel and defend themselves against criminal charges. And each act of leader-pleasing further degrades the moral and legal authority of the DOJ — and ultimately, the principle that we are a country of laws, not men.

When those wielding state power fear displeasing the president more than they fear looking ridiculous, they’re incentivized to overshoot. From cabinet officials on down, this logic can lead individuals to pursue ever-more aggressive, creative, and absurd tactics, outpacing the actual top-down directives to punish opponents and consolidate power.

Implications for the midterms

As our colleagues explained in detail in our recent Executive Override report, the White House is proceeding with its orchestrated campaign “to deceive the electorate about the security of their elections, to disrupt the electoral process, and to deny the results” of the midterms if opposition candidates win. At the same time, efforts to protect free and fair elections must account for the reality that executive actions are increasingly driven by subordinates devising new ways to flatter Trump and benefit themselves professionally — to secure a nomination, or simply keep their current job.

Read more — How the Trump administration plans to interfere with the 2026 elections, and what you can do about it

The case of Thomas Albus is instructive. Albus, a Missouri prosecutor whose earlier work in the U.S. Attorney’s Office didn’t involve election law, was tapped by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi and given special authority to handle election-related cases nationwide. Albus understood the assignment. He coordinated with Ed Martin and White House lawyer Kurt Olsen — both of whom had worked to overturn the 2020 election — and then authorized the FBI seizure of roughly 700 boxes of election material from Fulton County, Georgia, far outside his usual jurisdiction. The raid — which legal experts described as a significant escalation in the breaking of democratic norms — wasn’t traced to a Trump directive; it emerged from a network of loyalists who had built careers anticipating what he wanted.

Self-starting sycophants could very well play a starring role this fall, as ambitious officials seek out opportunities to ingratiate themselves by tilting the playing field in favor of Trump’s preferred candidates — potentially without waiting for an explicit directive from the White House. Now that “bootlicking” is the currency of the realm, one of the serious challenges we encounter this fall could be as simple as a prosecutor looking for a promotion.

Laughter isn’t the only medicine

When a federal indictment is based on a message spelled out in seashells, a reasonable response is laughter. Humor is also a bedrock tactic in resisting those who demand to be taken seriously while acting absurdly. But as satisfying as it is to call out the absurdity, we can’t let the cartoonish nature of these actions distract us from their underlying danger — or from the opening they create.

What makes these prosecutions so hard to stop is that subordinates often don’t need to be told. They know what Trump expects, and they know what happens to those who don’t deliver it. The result is a race to the bottom — ever more ridiculous and sycophantic displays of performative loyalty. But sycophantic prosecutions are, by definition, bad prosecutions. And bad prosecutions are vulnerable ones.

No single institution can fix this. But there are meaningful steps we can all take — and the very absurdity of these cases gives us more tools than we’d otherwise have:

• Criminal defendants can demand fee awards from the DOJ under the Hyde Amendment when charges are “vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith.” They can also pursue civil claims for malicious and vindictive prosecution to keep the spotlight on misconduct and seek accountability.

• Federal judges can set aside the “presumption of regularity,” as DOJ and other federal agencies no longer deserve a default rule that assumes they’ve acted in good faith and in a lawful manner. Judges can demand greater transparency into dubious prosecutorial behavior, granting tailored discovery requests, reviewing grand jury transcripts, and authorizing public disclosure when necessary and appropriate.

• Federal district courts can update their local rules to ensure adequate oversight of DOJ’s failed efforts to secure indictments before grand juries.

• Congress can exercise oversight of the DOJ and other federal agencies, demanding transparency into dubious executive actions and imposing clear limitations on the use of appropriated funds. The Senate can reject nominees who broke the law or otherwise disqualified themselves in the pursuit of presidential approval.

• State bar officials can strictly and promptly enforce their ethical requirements against federal prosecutors and other attorneys in the executive branch when presented with credible allegations of misconduct.

• State legislatures can authorize private lawsuits against federal agents who violate their constitutional rights — including officials who retaliate against individuals for criticizing the president or otherwise engaging in protected First Amendment activity. Over the last few weeks, New York and several other states have passed such laws.

• Individuals can follow and share the work of journalists and watchdog organizations tracking prosecutorial misconduct. Public pressure and reputational cost can be real constraints on bad-faith prosecutors — the Comey and Carroll cases are generating pushback partly because coverage has made the absurdity visible. Readers who amplify that coverage are participating in the accountability ecosystem.

Governance by flattery is no way to run a democracy. While federal officials bend over backwards to impress an audience of one, the rest of us must work even harder to protect our elections and the rule of law.