 |
Donald Trump and Pam Bondi (Getty) |
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) might be heading into its deepest period of crisis since the days of Richard Nixon, according to a report at Associated Press (AP). Under the "direction" of Donald Trump, who lacks the intellectual heft and the sturdy spine needed to oversee the justice apparatus of the world's foremost democracy, the DOJ appears to be spiraling into chaos -- and Trump has not even been in office for one month.
The department has been awash in controversy since Trump apparently pressured top officials last week to dismiss a criminal case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The Adams case is emitting the stench of an unlawful quid pro quo, a term that became well known around the country when Karl Rove reportedly launched a baseless criminal case against Alabama's Democratic Governor Don Siegelman during the George W. Bush administration -- mainly, it seems, because Republicans could not figure out how to beat Siegelman at the ballot box. Perhaps figuring Siegelman would be less of a headache if he and codefendant Richard Scrushy were behind bars, the Bushies arranged for that to happen, with the assistance of former federal judge Mark Fuller (a Bush appointee, who had ties to Bush-era criminals Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, plus slimy GOP Governor Bob Riley, who was Siegelman's chief political rival. and wound up being forced off the bench after pleading guilty to beating his wife in an Atlanta hotel room.) How low did Rove go? He even acted like a jackass toward Siegelman's daughter, Dana, when the two ran into each other at the Democratic National Convention.
As for Donald Trump, his cluelessness about matters of law is driving the DOJ around some dangerous curves. The Eric Adams matter has been the source of heavy and unflattering news coverage in recent days. But Trump's struggles with justice issues go way beyond the Adams case. Here are two persistent problems that seem to be digging a hole for the president:
1. Criminal prosecutions must be based on a finding of probable cause, that an offense has been committed, and the accused committed it. Any attempt to prosecute a defendant based on Donald Trump's yearnings for revenge, and not probable cause, is unlawful. Let's consider our post dated 4/9/24 under the headline "Donald Trump's plot
to prosecute Joe Biden without probable cause is based on a lie and
ignorance, as MSNBC analyst Joyce White Vance makes clear":
Donald Trump and his allies are
plotting to prosecute President Joe Biden if Trump wins the November
election, according to a report from Axios. After months of
Congressional inquiries, no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden has
surfaced, so it is unclear what would form the basis of a Trump-fueled
prosecution. But this much appears to be clear: Trump apparently wants
to prosecute Biden because he believes Biden had him prosecuted
-- even though Trump has offered no evidence to support that claim. One
prominent legal analyst has stated that Biden did not have Trump
prosecuted and could not have done so. Those matters come down to grand
jurors.
Also, the Axios
report suggests Trump has no problem violating roughly 40 years of U.S.
policy that holds the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is to operate
independently of the White House -- that presidents are not prosecutors,
and they are to be excluded from decisions to charge or not charge
suspected wrongdoers. . . .
Almost every issue raised in the Axios
article grows from the idea that Joe Biden is having Trump prosecuted.
In Trump's brain, that has to be true because
Trump cannot be responsible for anything that goes wrong. But this is a
lie, one Trump apparently is convinced his MAGA followers are gullible
enough to believe. But here is the truth, as stated by MSNBC legal analyst and former Alabama U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance, who wrote in a recent tweet:
"Joe
Biden didn't indict Trump.
Prosecutors must go before a grand jury, made up of citizens, including
Republicans & Democrats. These citizens hear evidence & vote on
whether a defendant should be charged. Different grand juries have now
done that with Trump 91 times."
2. Trump can't resist exerting demands on the DOJ, mainly because he is desperate to extract revenge on his perceived political opponents. But that runs contrary to longstanding U.S. policy, as spelled out in the DOJ's Justice Manual. This is from Section 1-8.600 - Communication with the White House:
In order to promote and protect the norms of Departmental independence
and integrity in making decisions regarding criminal and civil law
enforcement, while at the same time preserving the President’s ability
to perform his constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be
faithfully executed,” the Justice Department will not advise the White
House concerning pending or contemplated criminal or civil law
enforcement investigations or cases unless doing so is important for the
performance of the President’s duties and appropriate from a law
enforcement perspective.
Is that how the White House and the DOJ are operating in the Trump administration? The answer appears to be no, as the AP's Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer report:
Pam Bondi had insisted at her Senate confirmation hearing that as attorney general, her Justice Department would not “play politics.”
Yet
in the month since the Trump administration took over the building, a
succession of actions has raised concerns the department is doing
exactly that.
Top officials have demanded the names of thousands of FBI agents who investigated the Capitol riot, sued a state attorney general who had won a massive fraud verdict against Donald Trump before the 2024 election, and ordered the dismissal of a criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams
by saying the charges had handicapped the Democrat’s ability to partner
in the Republican administration’s fight against illegal immigration.
Even
for a department that has endured its share of scandals, the moves have
produced upheaval not seen in decades, tested its independence and
rattled the foundations of an institution that has long prided itself on
being driven solely by facts, evidence and the law. As firings and resignations mount, the unrest raises the question of whether a president who raged against his own Justice Department during his first term can succeed in bending it to his will in his second.
“We have seen now a punishing ruthlessness that acting department
leadership and the attorney general are bringing to essentially
subjugate the workforce to the wishes and demands of the administration,
even when it’s obvious” that some of the decisions have all the signs
“of corrupting the criminal justice system,” said retired federal
prosecutor David Laufman, a senior department official across Democratic
and Republican administrations.
He spoke not long after Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, resigned in protest following a directive from Emil Bove, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, to dismiss the case against Adams.
In a letter foreshadowing her decision, Sassoon accused the
department of acceding to a “quid pro quo” — dropping the case to ensure
Adams’ help with Trump’s immigration agenda. Though a Democrat, Adams
had for months positioned himself as eager to aid the administration’s
effort in America’s largest city, even meeting privately with Trump at
Trump’s Florida estate just days before the Republican took office.
Multiple high-ranking officials who oversaw the Justice Department’s
public integrity section, which prosecutes corruption cases, joined
Sassoon in resigning.
For those of us who lived through the '70s, all of that sounds positively Nixonian. But count me as one who is convinced Trump is capable of birthing a scandal that would make Watergate pale in scope and depravity. In fact, I would not be surprised if we already are in the early stages of such a scandal. Tucker and Richer write:
On Friday, a prosecutor involved in the Adams case, Hagan Scotten,
became at least the seventh person to quit in the standoff, telling Bove
in a letter that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet his
demand to drop the charges. (Bove and department lawyers in Washington
ultimately filed paperwork Friday night to end the case).
“Even though there may not be more resignations, a clear message has
been sent about the objectives and the expectations of the department,”
said Alberto Gonzales, who served as attorney general under Republican
President George W. Bush until his 2007 resignation in the wake of the
dismissal of several U.S. attorneys.
“The purpose of the
department is to ensure that our laws are carried out, that those who
engage in criminal wrongdoing are prosecuted and punished,” Gonzales
said. And to some it may appear “that if you have some kind of
relationship with the White House, there may not be consequences for
doing something that ordinary Americans engaged in similar conduct would
be punished.”
Bove, a former New York federal prosecutor himself who represented Trump
in his criminal cases, pointedly made no assessment about the legal
merits of the case against Adams. Bove cited political reasons,
including the timing of the charges months before Adams’ presumed
re-election campaign and the restrictions the case had placed on the
mayor’s ability to fight illegal immigration and violent crime.
In a letter to Sassoon, Bove said case prosecutors would be subject to internal investigations.
Bondi
defended the decision to drop the case, asserting in a Fox News
interview Friday that Adams was targeted after he criticized the Biden
administration’s immigration policies.
Do news reports support the assertions of Bondi and Bove regarding the Biden administration? If so, they are well hidden. This is from an account NPR:
The Justice Department memo calling for charges against Adams to be dropped doesn't question the facts or merits of the case.
Instead
it lays out two political reasons for the corruption case to be
dropped. First, it echoes an unsubstantiated claim that former President
Joe Biden and his administration may have used the prosecution to
punish Adams, a fellow Democrat, for publicly criticizing Biden's
immigration policies.
"It cannot be ignored that Mayor Adams
criticized the prior administration's immigration policies before the
charges were filed, and the former U.S. Attorney's public actions
created appearances of impropriety," the memo said.
No
evidence of the Biden team interfering in DOJ prosecutorial decisions
was offered to support that assertion. In the memo, DOJ officials also
said the case, if allowed to move forward, would hinder Adams from
devoting his full attention to one of Trump's top policy initiatives:
curbing "illegal immigration and violent crime" in New York City.
Adams has signaled growing openness to partnering with Trump administration
officials on immigration enforcement in the city and has reportedly
ordered NYC officials to avoid criticizing Trump or his policies.
Some
critics, including city and state officials running against Adams in
the mayor's race, condemned the DOJ move to drop charges and voiced
alarm at growing ties between Adams and the Trump team.
Posting on social media, New York City comptroller Brad Lander blasted what he called "Adams' effort to get a pardon for his pay-to-play charges."
"Eric Adams sold out New Yorkers to buy his own freedom," wrote New York state Sen. Jessica Ramos
on X. "Donald Trump may think this buys him access to terrorize our
communities, but New Yorkers always stand up for one another."
It's unclear how this move by the DOJ will affect investigations and criminal cases against a wide array of Adams' political allies, donors and former members of his administrations.