Trump's All-Out Attack on the Rule of Law
Trump’s All-Out Attack on the Rule of Law
Accusing the FBI and DOJ of partisanship and conspiracies, the president is setting the stage for a constitutional crisis.
By Bob Dreyfuss FEBRUARY 1, 2018
EDITOR’S NOTE: House Republicans released the disputed memo alleging FBI and Justice Department abuses on Friday, February 2.
With the imminent release of the jury-rigged “Nunes memo” and the resignation of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who had been under fire from the president, Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have expanded their all-out assault on the American system of justice, including the FBI, the Justice Department, the US intelligence community, and the Office of the Special Counsel. It’s an unprecedented attack on what Team Trump refers to as an imagined “Deep State,” a “secret society” within the FBI, and a conspiracy of judges, courts, and intelligence officials who have allegedly banded together to bring down his presidency.
There is of course a reality-based way to look at these events—namely, that the White House and the Trump campaign are under investigation by seasoned prosecutors and several congressional committees over plausible allegations that the president’s 2016 campaign colluded with or encouraged a Russian effort to influence the election’s outcome, and that since his inauguration Trump has engaged in a systematic effort to obstruct justice.
Never before in American political history—not during Watergate, not during the Iran/Contra investigation in the 1980s, and not during the 1990s special prosecutor’s investigation of Whitewater—has a president so openly challenged the legitimacy of the entire justice system. Others have questioned the interpretation and meaning of evidence, but Trump and his GOP allies—backed in the right-wing media by the likes of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh—have disparaged the patriotism, political neutrality, and professionalism of the entire US Justice Department, including the FBI, as well as the US intelligence community.
https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-all-out-attack-on-the-rule-of-law/
