Just as Trump tried to engage a foreign government to announce an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden and ordered up a probe of Hillary Clinton (which came to nothing), this is an egregious perversion of the rule of law. The president, like a tin-pot dictator, now uses the Justice Department to shield his criminal cronies, putting his finger on the scale in a way no other president has done in the modern era.
As he did in spinning the Mueller report and refusing to consider seriously the criminal implications of the whistleblower’s report, Attorney General William P. Barr has refused to defy the president or defend the reputation of his department. Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance tweeted:
As he did in spinning the Mueller report and refusing to consider seriously the criminal implications of the whistleblower’s report, Attorney General William P. Barr has refused to defy the president or defend the reputation of his department. Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance tweeted:
There are a few things that could be done:
First, the judge in the Stone case, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, could reject the revised recommendation, implicitly or explicitly rebuking the Justice Department. Second, while unlikely to be productive, the House can subpoena Barr to testify and explain the reversal. (He previously refused to respond to a House subpoena and was held in contempt.) Third, the House could open impeachment hearings on Barr, something I suggested previously when he refused to comply with a lawful subpoena and allowed his lawyers to misrepresent the facts in the Census case (only to be rebuked by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.). Finally, a wave of resignations of Justice Department officials might alert the country to the dangers of Trump erasing the line between partisan politics and the administration of the law (though Trump and his supporters may be delighted to fill their spots with more political cronies).
I have written before that the republic hangs by a thread. That thread is getting more and more tenuous.
Image: reddit.com
