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In two weeks, the nation witnessed two major announcements from the Department of Justice: the first federal indictment of a former president (Donald Trump) for unlawful retention of classified documents and related activities of obstruction, concealment, and false statements, and a guilty plea by the son of a sitting president (Hunter Biden) to federal tax and gun charges.
The identities of the defendants marked them as very important political events. And the responses to both sets of charges tell us a lot about the competing visions of governance on display in the early days of the 2024 election—a vision that threatens to undermine the fundamental principles of American law, and one that aims to take care of them.
Take, first, Trump’s reaction to his federal indictment. In his political rhetoric and in the emerging legal arguments in his defense, Trump has maintained that he has done nothing wrong. The inquiry, given the fact that it was conducted by the Department of Justice in a Democratic presidential administration, was an inappropriate political prosecution, full stop. Trump leveled similar accusations of political motivation in response to news of Hunter Bidens plea deal, although here Trump’s accusation was one of favoritism, not prosecution.
Trump has spent years dismissing every investigation into him as a political witch hunt, so this should come as no surprise. But what has become clearer recently is that when he insists that the charges against him are political, he is not actually criticizing prosecutors for what he says are their lack of independence, or suggesting that they should act in a neutral and apolitical manner. His claims that the inquiries are politically motivated are neither pure bad faith nor pure projection (though they may be both in part).
Instead, they are something more sinister and revealing: a pledge that if allowed to return to office, he would implement a vision of law enforcement in which there is no separation between prosecutors and political leadership, including the president In the short term, this will mean benefits for Trump and his friends, and punishment for his enemies. But the long-term consequences will be more dramatic: the abandonment of the fundamental value of equal justice under the law.
Viewed in the full context of the Trump presidency and the Trump reelection campaign, Trumps charge of political prosecution seems to be in the service of two related and intertwined goals. The first is to convince the public that law enforcement and the administration of justice are political in nature, and thus the allegations against him cannot be trusted. There’s some evidence that it’s working: A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 47 percent of the public believes the allegations against Trump are politically motivated.
A second, related goal is to start the public accepting the fundamental changes Trump wants to make to federal law enforcement, and perhaps the federal government more broadly, if given the chance. The irony, of course, is that these changes are designed to make law enforcement and government more politicized. But if Trump is successful enough in eroding public trust and confidence in federal law enforcement, he may encounter little resistance to his desire to radically change key features of American governance.
Here the evidence of what Trump wants to do is clear. Trump has openly vowed to weaponize the DOJ against political opponents, telling supporters on the very day of his federal arraignment that he would appoint a true special prosecutor to go after President Joe Biden and his family. He has indicated that in a second term he will bring back loyalists like Jeffrey Clark, a key ally of the DOJ in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election. And he has begun to look into the position that all federal employees must serve in at the president’s pleasure, which could mean removing long-standing protections that have protected members of the civil service from retaliation or politically motivated dismissal.
All of this is an extension of what has been on display throughout Trumps presidency. This is a man who, as president, regularly violates the standards of separation between his personal or partisan interests and the American government. He is also single-mindedly committed to attacking the career civil service, which he refers to as the deep state. He continued to inveigh against the shadowy cabal he suggested sought to undermine him, and he worked to undermine standards of independence and nonpartisanship within the federal government. Late in his term in office, he issued an executive order aimed at creating a new federal-employment status, Schedule F; if it goes into effect, this order will allow political appointees to reclassify large parts of the civil service to bring them under political control.
So when Trump calls these prosecutions political, he’s offering an honest account of his understanding of the relationship between the president and the federal prosecutors who are the federal prosecutors, like all federal employees, is subject to the directive of the president’s authority, and so Biden should be behind the pursuit of Trump. Trump’s complaint is not about this as a commanding principle that at the moment, he is not in a position to use the power of the state for his personal benefit. This claim may be surprising, but it follows naturally from Trumps brand of right-wing populism, one that offers a narrow view of who the true members of his supporters are and promises both represent and protect a limited population against a changing other: liberals, the media, prosecutors in Democratic administrations. As Trump recently promised supporters, I’m the only one who can save this country because you know they’re not going to come after me, they’re going to come after you. And I happened to be standing in their way. And I will never move.
These views are in deep tension with key features of the American political and constitutional tradition that since the late 19th century have emphasized the importance of nonpartisanship and expertise in the federal government in general. , and in particular law enforcement. But Trump is not alone in disagreeing with the consensus. GOP-primary hopeful and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has suggested that the DOJ’s longstanding independence standards are unconstitutional. Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Representative Jim Jordan’s work on the weaponization committee sought to use congressional-oversight authority to bully and intimidate career officials.
The Trump camps’ response to the news of Hunter Bidens agreement to plead guilty to two counts of tax evasion, and to accept a transfer agreement to avoid gun charges, illustrates this point. For years, Trump has pointed to the DOJ’s failure to prosecute Hunter Biden as evidence of political favoritism. Now that Hunter Biden has been indicted, and pleaded guilty, Trump has moved on to accusations that the plea terms were too lenient, which can be attributed to, you guessed it, political favoritism. The fact that the investigation and charging decisions were made by Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee whom Biden asked to remain in office, is not important, nor is the fact that the FBI is still run by Christopher Wray, who was chosen by Donald. Make jokes; as well as the fact that in many accounts these charges are more severe than those that would be brought against an individual guilty of similar conduct but with a different surname.
All of this is in stark contrast to President Bidens handling of his sons legal problems. Biden has bent over backwards to adhere to important bipartisan norms of law enforcement independence and insulation from political interference. His retention of a Trump appointee as Delaware’s top prosecutor is clearly motivated by a desire to ensure that the Hunter investigation is conducted by someone he did not choose. His decision to allow John Durham to complete his investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation was similar, as was his hands-off approach to Attorney General Merrick Garlands’ appointment of special counsel to investigate the handling of classifieds. materials by both former Vice President Mike Pence and President Biden himself.
In addition to making personnel decisions, both Biden and Garland have been silent on politically sensitive investigations. Bidens lone statement about the persecution of his children promised love and support as he continues to rebuild his life. He has maintained a studied silence on Trump’s accusation, and by all accounts intends to continue doing so.
Through it all, President Biden has offered, through actions more than words, a different model of governance. His composure and discretion were admirable, and they grew out of a principled commitment to avoiding any hint of political interference in sensitive law enforcement matters. Two markedly different perspectives are offered when it comes to the future of the relationship between law enforcement and politics.
The problem is, the two visions are not equally visible. Trumps vision is clearly presented; Bidens approach is more remarkable for the lack of action the refusal to comment, his decision to remain hands-off. Americans should remember these absences as the collective presence of something else: a demonstrated commitment to a functional system of depersonalized, impartial justice. But Biden’s approach should not be construed as inaction or passivity. It is, rather, an active and considered attempt to preserve the principle that, as Special Counsel Jack Smith said when Trump’s indictment was announced, there is one set of laws in this country, and they apply these at all.
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Sources 2/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/trump-hunter-biden-indictment-plea-deal/674543/ The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
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