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New revelations suggesting the Trump administration abused the Justice Department’s powers to target its political enemies underscore how far the former President has gone to destroy the republican government’s cherished principles of America.
They show that the true extent of Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy is still exposed and perhaps even today is not yet fully known.
But this is not just a drama about the alleged misconduct of a former President. Taken along with the Republican Party’s refusal to hold Trump – who remains the GOP’s dominant figure – to consider the Capitol uprising and nationwide efforts to restrict voting, new allegations also indicate that the freedoms and fundamental values that have plagued American life for two and a half centuries remain at almost unprecedented danger.
In some of the most frightening exposures of Trump’s autocratic tendencies, The New York Times late Thursday released a secret prosecutors ’scheme against members of Congress conducting the presidential administration.
In pursuit of leaks of classified information about contacts between Trump’s comrades and Russia, the Justice Department submitted Apple for data from Democrats ’accounts to the House Intelligence Committee, their staff and even their families, including a minor. In an unfortunate twist of the story, prosecutors also secured a gag order against Apple, preventing it from letting customers know their metadata had been stolen.
The story sent shockwaves through Washington and lawmakers are now struggling to understand the scope of what looks like one of the most serious scandals of a former administration filled with political corruption. If the new drama seems like it, it will prove the fears of the contenders that Trump – or his staff – used the Department of Justice as a personal political enforcement mechanism rather than a guarantor of the rule of law. It will also add fuel to the arguments of those who warn that a second term for Trump would even jeopardize the survival of American democracy,
In this case, prosecutors are not investigating the harmful exposure of a secret weapon system or some secret war plan. According to the Times report, they are investigating members of Congress, including California Reps. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, also from California.
“You called on the President and his opponents to investigate,” Schiff told CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” on Thursday. “Every successive outpost was just broken by this unethical former President.”
Swalwell, who told CNN Thursday night that he was notified that his data had been obtained, told CNN’s Jim Jimutto on Friday morning that he had not yet released the classified information and laid out why the citizens.
“It’s about everyday Americans who don’t want to see their government weapon law enforcement against them because of their political beliefs,” Swalwell said.
Why it is so important
The reason why this latest issue is so important is that it appears to show the executive branch of government using presidential power to target the legislative branch, and the personal enemies of the President’s politics. It is difficult to find a clearer and brutal abuse of presidential power. This behavior is not simply a distortion of the DOJ’s critical role in ensuring the impartial and apolitical application of justice – a fundamental requirement for a democratic society. It will also reflect the actions of autocrats around the world, many of whom are openly admired by Trump.
Moreover, it all takes place at a time when Trump is waging war against a “Deep State” of intelligence professionals and officials and while he is repeatedly lying. And the only reason revelations are emerging now is that gag orders about it and other investigations initiated by the previous administration will expire and will no longer be renewed by the Biden Justice Department.
In the first camera reaction to the Biden administration on Friday, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield called the reports “shocking.”
During an appearance on MSNBC from Cornwall, England, Bedingfield suggested that President Joe Biden had a “very different relationship” with the Justice Department than his predecessor, calling the Trump administration’s “abuse of power” in department, and added that the Biden administration is The Department of Justice is “operated completely, very differently.”
The latest revelations have raised the question of whether there is a more alarming abuse of Trump’s power yet to be discovered – an issue that will increase pressure on new Attorney General Merrick Garland to provide an accounting. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco asked the Department of Justice’s inspector general to investigate the department’s handling of the investigation, a Justice Department official told CNN on Friday.
At first glance, the new scandal appears to deserve a place in the pantheon of the most outspoken use of government power for political purposes in modern U.S. history, including the Watergate scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon and on Trump’s own long list. violations.
The latter category includes one impeachment for trying to gain a foreign power, Ukraine, to interfere with U.S. elections and another for inciting a human uprising at the U.S. Capitol that has ruined the tradition of peaceful transfer of power. Trump tried to bully GOP officials in Georgia to overthrow a fair election in 2020 – part of a campaign of lies about fraud that hurt millions of his supporters in the American political system. And he fired FBI Director James Comey and said he did it because of the Russian investigation.
The new reports aren’t the only fresh examples of attacks on Trump White House’s American democracy guardrails. They come to the same goal pursued by GOP state lawmakers making it harder to vote and easier to steal elections and by deniers of the former President’s uprising at the Capitol.
More revelations about Trump’s autocratic instincts
In another insight into the depth of the attack on democratic values in the U.S., it emerged this week that the Trump Justice Department took a gag order to prevent CNN from disclosing another secret leak investigation that spewed out the Pentagon reporter and Barbara Starr. Journalists working for the Washington Post and New York Times also learned recently that the Trump Justice Department chased their email records and metadata without informing them.
Governments have the right to investigate national security breaches. And leakers, whose whistleblowing may be necessary for accountability in a democratic society, know they face potential prosecution for breaking the law.
But it’s not clear that this is the case here, and the predicate for a Department of Justice investigation is opaque.
Only that fact will change the investigation into former Attorney General William Barr, whose initial appointment was met with relief in Washington over Trump’s previous violation of law, but often acted as a personal attorney for Trump. In its most famous example, he publicly announced Robert Mueller’s report on Trump’s campaign relationship with Russia and the 2016 effort to meddle in the Kremlin election. The current storm of leakage is another abuse of power by Trump that appears to have been motivated by a desire to cover up the remaining mysterious relationship between the orbit of the former President and Moscow, which interfered in the election five years ago in attempt to help Trump win.
The key to understanding the new case is whether it is justified by any proven evidence of leakage by leading Democrats, or rather a vindictive effort by a President who continues to force the Department of Justice to investigate his enemies.
The notion that the investigation was justified seems to be broken by the appalling scope of the subpoenas – even extending to family members of Congress. It also appears to have been a mistake.
The most severe outcome of another abuse of Trump power in the scandal may be to underline the truth about American democracy that has been repeatedly revealed by one of the most corrupt regimes in history. U.S. government structures are fragile and the guardrails that separate a President from exercising the full, almost monarchical power are often as strong as a leader’s respect for democracy itself. When an aberrant president is in position, those restrictions will be less effective.
New reports of abuse of power will provide another test to the Republican Party’s consistent choice to defend the former President’s misconduct rather than uphold the traditional principles of U.S. democracy.
If recent history is any guide, there is only one way that most members of a party comprehensively bought into Trump’s personality culture will respond.
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