by Ruth Marcus - 11/23/25

On a Friday evening in October, 2021, the Justice Department launched into damage-control mode. The Attorney General, Merrick Garland, the Deputy Attorney General, Lisa Monaco, and other senior officials gathered on an emergency conference call to decide how to deal with what they considered out-of-line remarks from President Joe Biden.

Steve Bannon, the former adviser to Donald Trump, had defied a subpoena from the House select committee investigating January 6th. Committee members were weighing whether to refer Bannon to the Justice Department for prosecution. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, had ducked commenting on a matter of such delicacy. “That would be up to the Department of Justice, and it would be their purview to determine,” she told reporters. “They’re independent.” But Biden, asked by the CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins whether he thought those who ignored subpoenas should face contempt charges, didn’t mince words. “I do, yes,” he said.

As Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis report in their new book, “Injustice,” those three words so alarmed Garland and his team that they felt compelled to issue a statement effectively rebuking their boss. Just fifty-one minutes after Biden’s comments, the department’s chief spokesman, Anthony Coley, released this deliberately tart comment: “The Department of Justice will make its own independent decisions in all prosecutions based solely on the facts and the law. Period. Full stop.”

by Amie Parnes - 11/22/25

“Trump is attacking anyone in sight because he’s losing his grip,” Democratic strategist Anthony Coley said. “His party blew winnable races this month, his approval rating is cratering, and Republicans on the Hill wouldn’t fall in line on the Epstein matter.”

“His attacks rise when his fortunes fall,” Coley continued. “It’s a pattern.”

by Amie Parnes - 11/14/25

Shaheen is one of eight Democratic Senate caucus members who voted for the deal. Schumer voted against the deal and has been public with his opposition, but he has been criticized by some Democrats for not convincing everyone in his caucus to oppose it.

“It’s one thing for Jeanne Shaheen to talk with rank-and-file Republicans about reopening the government. But no Democratic senator should be negotiating directly with the majority leader,” Coley said. “That’s Schumer’s job as the minority leader.

“Either he quietly signed off, or he’s lost control of his caucus — and neither shows the leadership this moment requires.”

by Stefania Palma and James Politi - 09/27/2025

“This is a pivotal moment in American history,” said Anthony Coley, a former DoJ official under ex-president Joe Biden. “There are still guardrails — the judge could dismiss [Comey’s indictment] on selective prosecution grounds, and a jury could acquit. But in many ways the process itself is the punishment. The message from Trump is unmistakable: cross him, and he’ll come for you.”

by Lauren Fedor - 09/22/25

Harris also painted an unflattering picture of her former boss. She wrote Biden called her hours before her debate against Trump to say he had heard that “power brokers” in Philadelphia were claiming she had been saying “bad things” about him. She added Biden then “rattled on about his own former debate performances”.

“I just couldn’t understand why he would call me, right now, and make it all about himself,” Harris wrote. “Distracting me with worry about hostile power brokers in the biggest city of the most important swing state.”

Anthony Coley, a former justice department official in the Biden administration, responded to the passage on X, saying: “There are really just two explanations for this: Biden intentionally tried to rattle her — which was wrong & shortsighted & self-defeating — or he didn’t quite realise what he was doing, which would be far more troubling.”

by Amie Parnes - 09/22/25

One Democratic strategist noted that while former nominees have a right to tell their stories, they also need to be aware that their viewpoints “aren’t being told in a vacuum.”

“It gives the other side an excuse to call us a mess while we air dirty laundry,” the strategist said.

But Democratic strategist Anthony Coley, who worked for the Biden administration, took issue with that sentiment.

“There are are always books from politicians after big moments in their careers and it’s better for her to write and be candid now than 12 months from now when we’re in the middle of an active midterm election,” Coley said.

Coley said Harris is “peeling back a layer” and offering a level of insight and candor that people want to see in elected officials now.

To that point, the strategist said he only has one regret: Harris, he said, “should have been more candid during the campaign.”

by Amie Parnes - 08/21/25

In the end, Democratic strategist Anthony Coley said, the numbers amount to trust with voters and “a larger problem with the Democratic brand.”

“Voters have run away from the party for a variety of reasons but trust — or the lack of it — tops the list,” Coley said. “Too many voters just don’t trust the Democratic Party to deliver on issues they care about.”

by Amie Parnes - 08/18/25

“In interviews with The Hill, some Democrats have expressed frustration with their party’s emphasis on decreasing crime rates instead of focusing on the way voters feel walking the streets of their city.

“These crime statistics, as impressive as they are, are no substitute for how people feel and what they see, and Washington residents still feel like crime is too high and too pervasive, and … that reality has created this opening for Donald Trump,” said Democratic strategist Anthony Coley, who resides in the nation’s capital.

“Now that is no excuse for this political stunt he is trying to do, but from a raw political perspective, you never want to give your political opponent an opening to address a real concern that your constituents have.”

by Glenn Thrush - 08/16/25

Many in Washington, particularly in communities of color otherwise hostile to the president, remain anxious about public safety.

“A lot of people on the ground still feel that crime is out of control,” said Anthony Coley, who served as a spokesman for Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “That has created an opening for this president to pull off a raw political stunt.”

by Raquel 'Rocky’ Harris - 08/13/25

MSNBC contributor, Anthony Coley, jumped in to compare Trump’s mission to his attempt to censor the severity of the Jan. 6 riots on the U.S. Capitol. He also added that ultimately, in order to improve one’s history, you must learn from past mistakes.

“The American story is both glorious and painful — it has warts. You don’t lift up and highlight the glorious parts and bury the warts,” Coley explained. “You tell the full American story in all of its truth. What this guy is doing is trying to turn the Smithsonian into a propaganda machine. He is trying to rewrite history, just like he did on Jan. 6. If you think really about what he tried to do with pardoning all of these, the criminal defendants, the people who were serving jail even for abusing and killing police officers, he’s trying to rewrite the narrative — of both — his narrative and American history….This is dangerous. It’s chilling, and I think every American who supports honest truth telling and fact telling should be concerned about this.”