President-elect Donald Trump has pledged legal retribution against his detractors. The marquee names include former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, President Joe Biden and his family, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special counsel Jack Smith. Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to head the FBI, compiled a list of 60 prosecutorial targets in his incendiary book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” including FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

We’ve seen this rodeo before. President Richard Nixon’s enemies list was comparable. White House Counsel John Dean elaborated, “This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly — how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”

Hillary and Bill Clinton bettered Nixon’s instruction by compiling an enemies list (with a ranking of 1-7 from least to most hated) to punish Democrats who neglected to support Hillary Clinton’s 2008 bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in favor of Barack Obama. Leading the list were Sen. Ten Kennedy, Sen. John Kerry and Rep. John Lewis.

Revenge customarily shipwrecks. Nixon resigned under an impeachment cloud. Clinton fell short of the presidency. Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab was destroyed by Moby Dick. And Shakespeare’s Shylock received nothing for demanding a pound of flesh.

Trump’s contemplated revenge will probably abort for sheer incompetency like “The Pink Panther”’s Inspector Clouseau. An omen for Trump surfaced last month with the release of the Interim Report on the Failures and Politicization of the January 6th Select Committee, issued by Republican Congressman Barry Loudermilk, chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight. Among other things, the report makes a criminal referral to the Department of Justice to consider prosecuting Cheney for her activities on the House Select Committee. The referral concerns Cheney’s act of communicating with witness Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a 24-year-old special assistant to then-President Trump in 2021, without alerting Hutchinson’s attorney, whom she later fired. The referral is laughable.

For starters, Cheney is constitutionally immune from prosecution for anything done in her capacity as a member of the Select Committee under the Speech or Debate Clause, Article I, Section 6. The Supreme Court’s precedent in Eastland v. United States Servicemen’s Fund (1975) fits like a glove.

There Sen. James Easland issued a subpoena for bank records of an allegedly subversive organization. The organization answered by suing the senator, claiming the subpoena violated its First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court held Eastland constitutionally shielded from the suit because the subpoena was issued in furtherance of a legitimate legislative investigative purpose. The court added that the Speech or Debate Clause forecloses judicial inquiry into alleged improper congressional motives.

Cheney served as vice chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. In furtherance of the investigation, the vice chair communicated with witness Hutchinson about her appearance to testify without alerting her counsel. Such member-witness communications are as routine as the rising and setting of the sun. In litigation or in similar adversarial circumstances, lawyers are bound by rules of professional responsibility. They generally frown on speaking to parties without contacting their lawyers. But members of Congress, in exercising their powers of investigation under Article I of the Constitution, are not governed by such rules. Indeed, it would be unconstitutional if a bar association attempted to prescribe rules of conduct for members of Congress in oversight hearings.

Loudermilk’s report dismisses the Speech or Debate immunity of Congresswoman Cheney in one conclusory sentence with no citation to any case law or historical precedent: “Such action is outside the due functioning of the legislative process and therefore not protected by the Speech and Debate clause.” That fallacy would be legal malpractice if argued by Loudermilk as a private lawyer.

The chairman also indicts Cheney for witness tampering and procurement of perjury in speaking with Hutchinson. But where’s the beef, to borrow from former Vice President Walter Mondale? The committee was unable to unearth a single statement or even body language suggesting Cheney coached Hutchinson’s testimony. It thus stooped to defamation protected by the Speech or Debate Clause reminiscent of discredited Sen. Joe McCarthy.

The people on Trump’s enemies list should not panic. The threats from Trump and his alter egos are sound and fury signifying nothing.

Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan and is author of “American Empire Before the Fall.” His website is www.lawofficesofbrucefein.com and X feed is @brucefeinesq.