Comey And Beyond, Costs Of TikTok Deal, Dreamers Amid Deportations

Oh, oh, Aisha, it's you.

Yes, yes.

Oh my goodness.

The question, who's next on the president's retribution list?

It's not a list, but I think there'll be others, others who could find themselves in the same situation as James Comey.

I'm Scott Simon.

And I'm Aisha Roscoe with Up First from NPR News.

The Justice Department indicted the former FBI director days after President Trump called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to do so.

We'll talk to our justice correspondent.

American investors are taking over TikTok and paying the government to do it.

Our tech correspondent asks experts when a fee is just a fee.

And then NPR's immigration policy reporter On DACA in the era of mass deportations.

So please stay with us.

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A week ago today, President Trump began a post online by directly addressing Pam.

Trump claimed that, quote, nothing is being done and later in all caps, justice must be served now.

On Thursday, prosecutors and Attorney General Pam Bondi's Justice Department followed through and secured criminal indictments against one of the president's perceived political enemies, former FBI Director James Comey, for false statements and obstruction.

NPR Justice correspondent Ryan Lucas joins us.

Ryan, thanks for being with us.

Thank you.

What does the indictment allege?

Well, look, it's very much a bare bones indictment.

It's just a page and a half long, but it contains the two counts you mentioned, one for false statements, the other for obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

Now, these charges stem from testimony that Comey gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee in September of 2020, so about five years ago.

That hearing revolved around the FBI's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

The indictment says that Comey lied by denying that he had authorized someone at the FBI to leak information.

That appears to be a reference to an exchange at that hearing between Comey and Texas Republican Ted Cruz.

Cruz asked Comey whether he had authorized someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports.

Comey gave only a brief reply.

He told Cruz that he stood by the answer that he had given back in 2017, which was that he had not authorized any such leak.

And what do you think we should make of the timing of this indictment, given what the president had said just a week ago?

Yeah, I think timing is an important aspect here.

We heard Aisha mention the demand the president made a week ago today, in essence, instructing Attorney General Pam Bondi by name to investigate specific people Trump doesn't like.

Trump named three people in that post post to be prosecuted: New York Attorney General Letitia James, California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, and James Comey.

Now, the case against Comey was being handled by the U.S.

Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Last week, Trump pushed out the top federal prosecutor there, in part because that prosecutor had expressed doubts about the strength of the case against Comey.

Trump then installed Lindsey Halligan to replace him.

Halligan has no prosecutorial experience, but she did once serve as a personal attorney for Trump, and she had been working in the White House.

Halligan then pushed through the indictment against Comey, and she did so over the objections of career prosecutors in the U.S.

Attorney's Office there, who also had concerns about the strength of the evidence in this case.

Now that James Comey has been indicted, what did the president have to say?

Well, Trump was asked about it yesterday when he was leaving the White House.

He was asked who would be next on his list of retribution.

You can hear the helicopter in the background here, but here's a bit of what he said.

It's not a list, but I think there'll be others.

I mean, they're corrupt.

These were corrupt, radical left Democrats, because Comey essentially was a Democrat.

He was worse than a Democrat.

Now, Trump has insulted Comey for years.

He did it again yesterday.

He called him a dirty cop.

Now, after the indictment was made public, Comey also put out a video on Instagram.

Here's a bit of what he said.

My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn't imagine ourselves living any other way.

We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn't either.

Comey also declared his innocence, said he has confidence in the federal judicial system, and he said, let's have a trial.

Finally, does this signal anything for the second Trump term?

Well, look, traditionally, the Justice Department has enjoyed independence from the White House, particularly in investigations and prosecutions.

The reason being to make sure that prosecutions and investigations aren't driven by and don't even appear to be driven by politics.

Now, here in just the past week, we have the president openly calling on the Attorney General to get after people Trump doesn't like.

That includes James Comey.

Now Comey has been indicted.

So, for legal observers and Justice Department veterans, this sure looks like Trump using the Justice Department to enact in technicolor the campaign of retribution that he promised against his political foes when he was running for president again.

And President Ryan Lucas, thanks so much.

Thank you.

The deal to take over TikTok's U.S.

operations comes with a price tag, and not just to his Beijing-based owner, ByteDance.

The Coalition of American Investors will also make a payment to the U.S.

government.

It's the latest example of something that's becoming increasingly common in this White House, extracting cash from private businesses for President Trump's dealmaking.

And here's Bobby Allen.

He's been looking into it and joins us now.

Bobby, thanks for being with us.

Hey, Scott.

First, who's buying what I'll call U.S.

TikTok?

Yeah, there's a number of mostly U.S.

investors, including Michael Dell, the Murdoch family, and Oracle, which is run by Trump ally Larry Ellison.

And like you said, they're buying the U.S.

side, so the U.S.

version of TikTok, to comply with a federal law that says China cannot have control over the app.

The White House is valuing the deal at around $14 billion.

But of course, that's not with the additional fee.

How much is that fee going to be?

I have a source with direct knowledge of the talks who was not authorized to speak, but they said the the investors have agreed to a fee in the low billions and that would be devoted to the U.S.

Treasury.

Why would the investors pay that?

My source told me that it's just seen as the price of doing business right now.

But to say this kind of fee to the federal government is unusual is quite the understatement.

I talked to historians, economists, and industry insider Scott, who all told me that squeezing businesses like this has very few parallels in modern history.

And this is not the first time the administration's gotten involved in a deal like this, right?

Yeah, there's a number of other examples, including chip makers NVIDIA and AMD.

They're going to be giving the federal government 15% of its sales to China.

The White House secured a so-called golden share in U.S.

steel.

And my colleague David Folkenflick has reported that when CBS settled a Trump lawsuit for $16 million, it cleared the way for parent company Paramount to merge with Skydance Media.

Some experts say these arrangements look like shakedown schemes.

I talked to Luigi Luigi Zangalis.

He's a finance professor at the University of Chicago, and he calls these arrangements rent-seeking.

Common language is less sophisticated, it's called sucking up, but is actually quite expensive.

Zangalis says it's expensive because these payments end up essentially being a tax on business transactions that involve the federal government, and they actually can change how businesses operate day to day.

Instead of innovating, people will spend time trying to ingratiate Trump.

Instead of going and find a new discovery, they will spend time in Washington in the corridors of power trying to figure out what pleases Trump.

Mobby, how does the Trump administration respond to this criticism?

The White House didn't return my request for comment, but in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump was asked about the multi-billion dollar fee and he dodged the question.

Instead, he said, quote, the U.S.

comes out great in the TikTok deal.

Now, after Trump got Intel to agree to a 10% stake of the company to the U.S., following Trump's calls for the CEO of Intel to resign, Trump did make a post on Sooth Social and it said,

The United States paid nothing for these shares, and the shares are now valued at approximately $11 billion.

This is a great deal for America and also a great deal for Intel.

So the president does seem to view these unusual interventions in private business as something of a win for the country.

And Pierre's Bobby Allen, thanks so much.

Thanks, Scott.

President Trump has vowed mass deportations of everyone who is in this country without legal status.

For a few groups of people, such as DACA recipients, their status is not cut and dry.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program is supposed to protect DREAMers from immigration enforcement, but several DACA recipients have been arrested and detained.

NPR's immigration policy reporter, Jimena Bustillo, has been following this and joins us now.

Hi, Jimena.

Hi.

So the DACA program was created in 2012.

Where does it stand today?

The program was created to protect children who arrived in the country illegally prior to 2007 from deportation, but DACA is not an immediate path to citizenship or even a green card.

Participants instead have to renew their protection every two years.

They can also be removed from the program and lose protections if they commit crimes.

Currently, about half a million people are on DACA, and now many of them are in their 30s and 40s.

It provides a work permit and can be adjusted if a person leaves the U.S.

and comes back with a visa or marries a U.S.

citizen, among other options to adjust status.

And since it was created, there has been no successful effort to provide a pathway to legal status for those who are on the program.

Plus, the president had already tried to repeal DACA in his first term, and he failed to do so.

Since President Trump couldn't get DACA repeal then, how is he approaching the program in his second term?

So far, no regulatory changes have been made to formally end the program, but parts of Trump's administration have made moves to strip benefits.

For example, the Health and Human Services Department said in June, DACA recipients would no longer be eligible to buy insurance through the federal health care marketplace.

Then in July, the Education Department launched an investigation into five universities that offer financial help directly to DACA recipients.

And as the Homeland Security Department has increased the rates of arrests, there have been reports of DACA recipients being caught up in work site raids and even deportations.

At one point, I asked DHS about this and they told me that DACA did not confer legal status and that those without legal status are encouraged to self-deport.

Now, that's a very strong message that deviates from the first public statement Trump made after he won the election last year.

So, what did he say then?

At the time, Trump said on NBC's Meet the Press that he would be open to negotiating a deal for DACA with Democrats.

Now, both Republicans and Democrats have hung on to that statement made in December as a sign that someday Trump may say he's ready to come to that negotiating table, though there has since been nearly no discussion on the issue, and instead, the focus is still on deportations.

DACA could be addressed not just by the president, but particularly by Congress.

What can Congress do?

Right.

Ultimately, any permanent solution has to come from Congress, but the coalition that cares about this issue is a little bit fractured right now.

I spoke with several GOP senators and representatives that have all previously supported finding a pathway for DACA recipients, and Senate Democrats have been increasingly vocal about the urgency to find a solution because arrests are happening.

Still, Republicans control both chambers of Congress, and there was the consensus that nothing would happen this year.

There are simply other concerns at the top of lawmakers' minds, like keeping the government from shutting down, for example.

And they also said that they were waiting for the president himself to say that it's time to broker a deal.

There are a few efforts in the House and Senate, individual bills that would provide a pathway to legal status for DACA recipients, but there isn't a sense that they will move anytime soon, even as Trump's deportation efforts only grow.

That's NPR's immigration policy reporter, Jimena Bustillo.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks, Aisha.

And that's it first for Saturday, September 27th, 2025.

I'm Scott Simon.

And I'm Aisha Roscoe.

Michael Radcliffe produced today's podcast with help from Elena Torak and Dave Mistich.

Our editor has been Ed McNulty, along with Gabriel Dunatoff, Melissa Gray, Krishna Dev Callimore, Jeff Brumfield, and Megan Pratz.

Fernando Naro directed.

Our technical director was David Greenberg with engineering support from Nisha Hines, Zo Vangenhoven, and Ted Miebane.

Our senior supervising editor is Shannon Rhodes.

E.V.

Stone is our executive producer and Jim Kaine is our deputy managing editor.

Tomorrow on the Sunday story, feelings about the course of the country from around the country, from wheat farmers in Washington State to merchants in Mississippi.

That's here on the podcast.

And there is a ton more on the radio.

So please find your local NPR station at stations.npr.org.

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