Trump Has Found His Roy Cohn in Mark Whitaker

[DonViejo]

By Jonathan Chait@jonathanchait

Before the forced resignation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, it was possible, however optimistically, to dismiss Donald Trump’s authoritarianism as mere rhetoric and affect. It is not possible any longer. Sessions’s departure, and his replacement with Mark Whitaker, is Trump’s plan to corrupt the Department of Justice. It is the most dire threat to the republic since Trump’s election itself.

If you study literature of democratic backsliding, the frightening conclusion is that nobody has devised a system of laws comprehensive enough to guarantee the survival of a democratic government. Because there is always wiggle room in the execution and enforcement of the law, democracies rely on informal norms. One of those norms is the independence of federal law enforcement, without which, the ruling party could use the law as a weapon against its enemies while shielding itself.

Of course, presidents have the leeway to choose their own Attorney General. It is mere tradition that dictates that the Attorney General, once selected, operate at arm’s length from the president’s political interests. There is simply no doubt that Trump’s entire rationale for firing Sessions is his refusal to quash the Russia investigation, because he has not even bothered to conceal his motive. Trump has repeatedly lambasted Sessions for failing to “stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now.” Sessions is an original Trump loyalist, an unusually committed believer in and effective implementer of the president’s ethnonationalist agenda on immigration and crime. Sessions’s sole failure (in Trump’s eyes) was having to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, and refusing Trump’s demands to reverse the decision. Corruption is literally Trump’s only motive for turning against him.

What’s more, he has frequently expressed the overarching ethos with which the Department should operate. Trump told the New York Times that President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, covered up what Trump claims to be multiple serious crimes by Obama and that this is the correct way for him to operate. “Holder protected the president,” he said. “And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest, I have great respect for that.” At other times, reaching for a more familiar example, he wished the Attorney General would be “my Roy Cohn,” referring to the architect of Joe McCarthy’s notorious smears, who went on to mentor Trump.

Trump has every reason to believe that he has found his Roy Cohn in Whitaker. The archconservative new Acting Attorney General has run for office and appears to see his future in Republican politics. As a candidate, he publicly declared that judges should be “people of faith” who had “a biblical view of justice.” In practical terms, he has interpreted the biblical view of justice the way most of his fellow Christian conservatives do: a combination of stern, Old Testament punishments meted out to Democrats combined with New Testament forgiveness toward any sin by a Republican.

more
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/mark-whitaker-is-trumps-corrupt-partisan-attorney-general.html

[Turbineguy]

1. Maybe.

Since writing that op-ed piece last year puts him in the crosshairs, he may have to recuse himself. Trump has made it pretty clear how loyalty works. Whitaker's problem is he's been touched by trump and everything trump touches turns to shit.

[comradebillyboy]

2. Trump may want Whitaker to be his new Roy Cohn but I don't think

he's up to the job.

[Cattledog]

3. Whitaker is an intellectual lightweight. He will fall all over himself when

push comes to shove. He's just a toady.