Not to get all Old World on you, but the Oxford Dictionary defines “lawfare” thusly: “Legal action undertaken in order to exert power or control, esp. as part of a hostile campaign against a particular country or group.”

In New World parlance? Author Malcolm Feeley in 1979 published a tome with a title that best sums up the point of lawfare: “The Process Is the Punishment.”

It’s death by a thousand cuts—of red tape. You are bled out by government.

President Donald Trump was endlessly subjected to stupid, baseless charges and lawsuits filed in various courts all around the country. But while this was referred to as lawfare, I would argue the process wasn’t the punishment for which its many executors ultimately hoped. 

They actually wanted to send Trump to prison. Because they hate him. And because they knew if they failed to send him to prison, he would get reelected. Oh, look.

And Trump is a billionaire. While the avalanche of idiotic charges was annoying, it wasn’t financially debilitating, as it was for, say, baselessly charged onetime Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.

“[W]hether or not this leads to [Flynn’s] vindication legally, the case has come at an enormous cost for the retired three-star Army lieutenant general and his family, as he racked up millions of dollars in legal bills, was forced to sell his house, lost his job, and saw his reputation sullied,” Fox News

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