We’re Less Safe Today Because the Inmates Are Running the Asylum

Professionals are out. Political hacks are in.

Most of you have probably seen by now that Donald Trump has finally gotten the Justice Department to move forward with bullshit prosecutions against James Comey and Letitia James. He fired the sitting U.S. attorney—someone who didn’t think charges would stick or even make it to a jury—and replaced them with one of his former defense attorneys. And here’s the part that’s really lodged in my brain since I found out last night: the person he picked has never prosecuted a case in her life.

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Just sit with that for a second. Forget the politics. Forget the revenge tour. Let’s just talk about what’s necessary to keep Americans safe. Because instead of picking someone remotely qualified to do one of the most serious jobs in government, he picked another loyalist to carry out his personal vendettas.

Meanwhile, real criminals are out there—drug traffickers, sex offenders, murderers, white-collar predators targeting middle-class families and retirees. These people need to be caught, charged, and put away. That takes professionals. Adults in the room. People who know how the system works and can wield it with precision. But instead, Trump has corrupted the entire process by installing unqualified hacks in roles that actually matter.

Kash Patel and Dan Bongino are perfect examples. Patel’s been an embarrassment these past few weeks—inserting himself into active federal cases, screwing them up, and chasing headlines instead of criminals.

What Trump has done to the DOJ, the FBI, and every other federal agency in just nine short months of assuming office has weakened our country on every front. He’s replacing qualified public servants with sycophants. Do you feel safer flying now that Sean Duffy—a former reality TV contestant—is running the Transportation Department? Do you feel confident and reassured knowing Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host who had to promise to stop drinking just to be considered for Defense Secretary, is making life-and-death decisions? I sure as hell don’t.

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And it’s happening everywhere. RFK Jr. is in charge of Health and Human Services and telling people that Tylenol causes autism—something that has not been proven on any level. So again, I ask: do you feel safer? Healthier? Stronger as a country? Is this what you voted for? Is it what anybody voted for?

It’s not what I voted for. And it’s not what a lot of lifelong Republicans I know—including my own dad, a three-time Trump voter—voted for either. What we’ve got now is a full-on carnival show with real consequences that have jeopardized the sanctity of our democratic institutions.

We can have real, honest debates in this country about the problems we face and how to solve them. That’s democracy. Left, right, center—whatever. But we’re not even having those debates, because the most unqualified people in America are now in charge, racing to the bottom. And now Trump’s former defense attorney—someone who has never tried a case—is running the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia. That’s not a functioning justice system. That’s a damn joke.

Yes, cronyism has always been part of politics. But some roles are supposed to rise above it—Attorney General, FBI Director, U.S. Attorneys. These are supposed to be the adults: professional, qualified, level-headed, focused, honorable. The people who don’t answer to party politics, but to the law. Because bad shit will happen. And when it does, we need professionals at the helm. Not conspiracy-theory pushers like Patel’s FBI, which responded to the Kirk shooting by throwing gasoline on the fire and birthing more conspiracies than I’ve seen since the Kennedy assassination.

When you abuse federal power like this, criminals walk free and regular people get hurt. That’s the bottom line. We now have a government of grievance. A government of one man—Donald Trump—hellbent on revenge, surrounded by yes-men who will never tell him the truth, who care more about titles and paychecks than national security.

It’s more dangerous to be an American citizen today because of it. We’re sitting on a ticking time bomb—we know some foreign or domestic actor is ready to exploit this chaos, if not already. Maybe it’s fraud rings going after seniors. Maybe it’s a cyberattack from Russia. Maybe it’s a terrorist group plotting payback. You don’t think Iran’s watching, waiting for the next opening after we bombed them a few months ago?

Bad things happen in free societies. I get that. But we used to have highly qualified public servants—like my father, who spent 34 years in the FBI—doing their jobs quietly, professionally, and without playing politics. Now? At every level? That professionalism is gone. And we, the People, are paying the price—not only with our tax dollars but with our personal safety.

And as trust in our institutions collapses, so does our ability to function as a free society. This is one of the most dangerous periods in American history—and we’re sleepwalking through it while the clowns run the show.