Attorney General Pam Bondi's decision to order a grand jury investigation into Obama-era intelligence officials has greatly raised expectations for MAGA supporters who have long sought justice against the movement's political enemies, Axios reported Wednesday.
With President Donald Trump at the height of his powers, and the Justice Department filled with loyalists, pretexts, and political will, the threat of criminal charges targeting Trump's enemies is no longer confined to the base's imagination.
"Unless we see people tried and held accountable and in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs, this is not going away," the Conservative Partnership Institute's Rachel Bovard said on Vince Coglianese's podcast on Monday.
Activist Charlie Kirk added on his podcast Tuesday, "color me a little bit cautious here that we're immediately going to get perp walks and indictments, but that is what we need."
The grand jury probe, focused on the origins of the 2016 Russia investigation, is the culmination of a campaign over a number of years to criminalize the officials and agencies Trump claims undermined his first term, according to Axios.
MAGA backers view the "Russia collusion hoax" as the original sin that damaged Trump's first term — a "witch hunt" that wound up discrediting Democrats, delegitimizing the media, and destroying the old boundaries of political warfare.
But even with the drastic step of impaneling a grand jury, there's no guarantee the probe will yield indictments — or convictions, if it reaches that point.
However, pressure on Bondi to deliver will be relentless, especially after she infuriated Trump's base last month by declaring that there was no Epstein "client list" — contradicting years of MAGA speculation about a high-level cover-up by Democrats, intelligence agencies and global elites.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.