The most radical thing Donald Trump has said in a while
On Justice.
I struggle regularly with whether to write about all the things that Donald Trump says on a given day.
So much of it is outlandish. Or controversial. Or just plain odd.
But, every once in a while, something breaks through and demands attention.
This is one of those moments.
Here’s Trump, on Truth Social, earlier this week:
Pay particular attention to these lines; “I will appoint a real special ‘prosecutor’ to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the USA.”
And consider what Trump is saying there — and what it means about how he sees the government, and the Justice Department in particular.
He is suggesting that because he believes his indictment is political, that “the seal” is now broken— allowing him to aggressively target Joe Biden if he becomes president. Tit for tat — and all that.
Now, whether to appoint a special counsel is the purview of the Justice Department and, in particular, the Attorney General. It is not something the president does.
Trump either doesn’t know that fact or simply doesn’t care. Which would be in keeping with how he ran his White House — and the Justice Department, in particular — over his time in office.
When his first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the FBI’s Russia investigation, Trump was irate — enraged that Sessions would do such a thing to him. Emphasis on “to him.”
Trump similarly hounded Bill Barr, who replaced Sessions — wondering aloud while the Justice Department wasn’t going after his political enemies more aggressively.
By the end of his term, Trump was trying to install Jeffrey Clark as AG — in hopes of using him to overturn the 2020 election results.
As the New York Times wrote Thursday:
In his first term, Mr. Trump gradually ramped up pressure on the Justice Department, eroding its traditional independence from White House political control. He is now unabashedly saying he will throw that effort into overdrive if he returns to power.
Mr. Trump’s promise fits into a larger movement on the right to gut the F.B.I., overhaul a Justice Department conservatives claim has been “weaponized” against them and abandon the norm — which many Republicans view as a facade — that the department should operate independently from the president.
Trump’s latest threat against Biden speaks to how what we saw in his first term may only be the tip of the Trump iceberg when it comes to how he will work to bend the federal bureaucracy to his will if he gets back into the White House.
Consider again, what he is proposing: That he, as president, will have a totally compliant Department of Justice that will do exactly as he says and appoint a special counsel to target his main political opponent. And that, presumably, the special counsel will find what Trump wants him or her to find — that Biden is “the most corrupt president in the history of the USA.”
Now, contrast that with what we know about how Biden and his administration have handled the ongoing federal probe into Trump’s retention of classified documents.
Last Thursday, before the Trump indictment went public, Biden said this: “I have never once — not one single time — suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do, relative to bringing a charge or not bringing a charge.”
The White House made clear that Biden learned of the indictment later that night from news reports. And the following day, when asked whether he had spoken to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Biden responded: “I have not spoken to him at all. I’m not going to speak to him.”
Which is, um, different!
Trump is promising a radically reimagined DOJ — one that takes orders from and understands it must be loyal to the president. Which is broadly consistent with the belief he seemed more and more certain of as his presidency went along: That the chief executive needs to have complete and total power over every element of the government.
Make no mistake: Trump’s vision for the Department of Justice is a radical one. It would fundamentally reorient the way the department operates and how justice would be perceived, writ large, in the country.
And it’s yet more evidence that if you thought Trump’s first term was bad, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Wanted to just say a broad thank you to the commenters out there. These comments are interesting and informative -- I am learning!
The only way we're going to ever be rid of the Orange Menace is when he is six feet under. And I don't care how it happens - the fatal hamberder, a blow to the head with a 9 iron, died of old age forgotten in his solitary confinement in the Florence SuperMaX. Whatever.