Are State AGs The Secret Weapon To Defeating Trump and Republicans?

Bottom Line Up Front (B.L.U.F.): Prosecuting corruption stands as a core necessity for dismantling the power structures that enable fascism. When we hold enablers accountable through state prosecution, we demonstrate that blue states refuse to accept federal lawlessness as normal. We can prove that aggressive state-level action can protect democratic institutions even when federal systems fail. This work represents exactly the kind of state autonomy and resistance that makes soft secession viable. If you want to understand how aggressive state action can counter federal overreach and build genuine alternatives to captured institutions, read my new booklet “Intro To Soft Secession” available at the link below

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The documented criminal conduct from Donald Trump’s nearly year-long return to office reveals a gross paradox. Prosecutors possess termination letters explicitly citing Trump investigation work as grounds for firing. Judge rulings finding corrupt bargains. Prosecutor testimony about quid pro quo demands. Documented pay-for-pardon timing showing $900,000 donations followed weeks later by clemency erasing $675 million in victim restitution. Evidence that would send anyone else to prison for decades accumulates daily. Yet Trump operates with complete impunity, precisely because his most serious crimes involve the powers the Supreme Court has placed beyond legal reach.

The obstruction of justice evidence stands as one of the strongest cases of blatantly criminal conduct. Trump ordered the firing of hundreds of DOJ and FBI personnel explicitly for their work investigating him. Acting Attorney General James McHenry wrote to Jack Smith’s team members that “given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.” By November 2025, approximately 15 prosecutors from Smith’s team had been fired, along with all prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases, and 368 Civil Rights Division attorneys had departed. Trump publicly approved these actions, stating on January 31, 2025 that “if they fired some people over there, that’s a good thing because they were very bad.” This conduct falls squarely under federal statutes carrying 20-year maximum sentences for obstruction of justice and witness tampering. Legal experts overwhelmingly conclude this violates federal law. Over 900 former federal prosecutors signed warnings about investigations based on politics rather than law. Special Counsel Jack Smith concluded in his final report that evidence “would have led to Trump’s conviction at trial, if not for Mr. Trump’s election.”

The Eric Adams dismissal provides the clearest evidence of corrupt intent. In February 2025, Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, Trump’s former personal defense lawyer, ordered prosecutors to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon documented in her resignation letter that Adams’ lawyers “repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo,” dismissal in exchange for immigration enforcement assistance. When prosecutors refused, seven resigned in a single night rather than comply. Judge Dale Ho dismissed the case “with prejudice,” ruling the DOJ’s actions “smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.” Legal scholars called it the “Saturday Night Massacre on steroids.”

The pardon schemes show clear financial quid pro quos. Trevor Milton and his wife each donated $900,000 to Trump committees in October 2024. Trump pardoned him in March 2025, eliminating his four-year sentence and wiping out $675 million in restitution owed to fraud victims. Paul Walczak’s mother attended a $1 million-per-plate Mar-a-Lago fundraiser. Trump pardoned him three weeks later, eliminating 18 months imprisonment and $4.4 million in restitution. Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in October 2025 after Trump’s family earned hundreds of millions in fees from Binance hosting their cryptocurrency platform. When asked about the pardon, Trump claimed “I don’t know who he is.” House Judiciary Committee Democrats calculated these pardons deprived victims and taxpayers of $1.3 billion in restitution and fines.

The systematic targeting of investigators extends beyond firings to active witness intimidation. The DOJ demanded lists of all 5,000-plus FBI employees who worked on January 6 cases. Investigations opened into whistleblowers who reported misconduct. Security clearances were revoked for 51 intelligence officials who signed the Hunter Biden laptop letter. Three senior FBI agents were fired in August 2025 after refusing to provide names of investigators, and they filed federal lawsuits alleging Fifth Amendment violations and retaliatory firings. FBI Assistant Director James Dennehy warned that “good people are being walked out,” while the FBI Agents Association said dismissing potentially hundreds of agents “would severely weaken the Bureau’s ability to protect the country.”

The federal system won’t hold Trump accountable because Trump systematically destroyed it. He installed his personal defense attorney at the head of our nations entire justice department, told the department they work for him, and purged everyone who would potentially investigate him for wrongdoing. Fifteen Jack Smith prosecutors gone. All January 6 prosecutors terminated. 368 Civil Rights Division attorneys departed. The termination letters explicitly stated “your role in prosecuting the President” as grounds for firing. DOJ won’t prosecute Trump because Trump fired anyone at the DOJ willing to prosecute him. Obstruction of justice operating exactly as designed.

The Supreme Court’s immunity ruling makes prosecution of Trump’s conduct nearly futile even after he leaves office. Trump v. United States grants absolute immunity for “core constitutional powers” including pardons, DOJ direction, and removal of executive officers. Even actions outside core powers receive “presumptive immunity” if classified as “official acts,” with prosecutors bearing the burden of proving prosecution won’t intrude on executive functions. Trump’s most serious crimes carrying 20-year sentences involve exactly those acts most thoroughly shielded by immunity.

To put it succinctly, the only way he goes to jail is with a constitutional amendment specifically crafted to remove the immunity granted by the Supreme Court.

States face substantial barriers despite theoretical constitutional authority. The 1973 and 2000 Office of Legal Counsel memos don’t bind state prosecutors, and the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Vance that states can subpoena sitting presidents for criminal investigations. But Trump would immediately invoke the Federal Officer Removal Statute to move any case to federal court, claim presidential immunity, and federal government would seek injunctions blocking state prosecution. The Secret Service would physically block any arrest attempt. Most constitutional scholars expect the Supreme Court would find sitting presidents temporarily immune from state prosecution based on incapacitation concerns and federal supremacy under the Supremacy Clause.

The Constitution’s checks and balances have failed completely. Impeachment requires 67 Senate votes that don’t exist in a deeply polarized country. DOJ won’t prosecute because Trump purged it. States are blocked by supremacy and immunity during his term. The Supreme Court has granted sweeping protection for official acts. Congress is paralyzed by partisanship. The legal system designed to apply equally to all has been rendered powerless against a president who uses official powers for criminal ends.

Prosecuting former heads of state is routine in democracies worldwide. Since 1980, approximately half the world’s countries have had at least one case of a former leader jailed or prosecuted, with leaders across at least 78 countries facing such accountability since 2000. The critical pattern: every successful prosecution happened after the leader left office.

South Korea provides the most systematic example. Four former presidents have been convicted and imprisoned. Roh Tae-woo was arrested in November 1995 on charges of accepting bribes and served 767 days before pardon. Chun Doo-hwan was imprisoned 17 days later for the military coup and Gwangju Massacre and served 750 days. Park Geun-hye was sentenced to 20 years in January 2021 after being impeached and served 1,736 days before pardon. Lee Myung-bak was arrested in March 2018 and served 958 days before pardon. South Korea investigated and convicted five former presidents starting in the 1990s in a wave of political prosecutions. Lee was convicted of embezzling funds, taking bribes from Samsung, and other crimes committed during his presidency, receiving a 17-year sentence. Park was found guilty on 16 out of 18 charges including abuse of power, bribery, coercion and leaking government secrets. Her impeachment was upheld by the Constitutional Court in a unanimous decision, making her the first Korean president removed from office since democratization in 1987.

France demonstrates that established Western democracies prosecute former leaders. The conviction of former presidents Jacques Chirac in 2011 and Nicolas Sarkozy multiple times from 2021 onward normalized prosecuting prominent figures on the same basis as the rest of the population. Chirac was convicted of corruption for kickbacks and attempting to bribe a magistrate during his time as Paris mayor, receiving a two-year suspended sentence. In March 2021, Sarkozy was convicted of bribery and influence peddling and sentenced to three years in prison with two years suspended for trying to bribe a judge through his attorney. France’s highest court upheld this corruption conviction in December 2024. In September 2025, Sarkozy was sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy in a scheme to finance his 2007 campaign with funds from Libya, marking the first time a former French president received an actual prison sentence to be served behind bars. In October 2025, Sarkozy began serving his sentence at La Santé prison in solitary confinement.

Peru demonstrates the extreme end. Every president but one who served between 1985 and 2018 has been arrested or charged. The country designated a special penitentiary for former presidents called Barbadillo prison with three custom-built cells. Alberto Fujimori arrived in 2007 to serve a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses. Pedro Castillo arrived in December 2022 after attempting to dissolve congress. Alejandro Toledo arrived in April 2023 facing money laundering charges. As of August 2025, Peru became the first country worldwide to have all of its former presidents jailed simultaneously. All former Peruvian presidents who governed since 1985 have been ensnared in corruption allegations, some imprisoned or arrested in their mansions. Former leader Alan García fatally shot himself in the head in 2019 as police arrived at his home to arrest him.

Brazil shows that prosecution does not end political careers. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was convicted in 2017 on charges of money laundering and corruption and jailed in 2018, but he had his charges overturned in 2021 when a judge held that the court lacked jurisdiction, which allowed him to run for presidency in 2022. Lula won and is now serving as Brazil’s president while awaiting a fresh trial.

The international pattern reveals consistent themes. Prosecution for corruption dominates cases worldwide. Outcomes vary dramatically based on political context and judicial independence. Pardons frequently follow convictions when political winds shift. But the fundamental principle holds: democracies worldwide prosecute former leaders after they leave office. The United States stands as an outlier because we haven’t.

Federal prosecution after January 2029 remains the most direct path but faces substantial obstacles. This requires a new administration willing to prosecute, which depends entirely on the 2028 election outcome. Prosecutors would need to argue that corrupt uses of official power exceed immunity protections under Trump v. United States. The current 6–3 conservative Supreme Court majority that granted sweeping immunity makes favorable rulings unlikely. Evidence and witnesses must be preserved through 2029–2030 when statutes of limitations expire. Political will must exist in a deeply polarized country to prosecute a former president. Most viable legal path, but requires Democratic administration and Supreme Court shift. As mentioned above, a Constitutional Amendment would be the most effective path.

State prosecution of Trump’s enablers represents the most actionable strategy available now. The immunity protecting Trump does not extend to everyone who carried out his orders. Emil Bove ordered the Adams dismissal. He’s not president. People who structured pay-for-pardon schemes aren’t immune. Anyone who participated in state-level corruption can be charged under state law, and those convictions cannot be pardoned by Trump or any future president. Only state governors control those pardons.