Trump intensifies assault on rule of law as he fights for reelection
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/politics/trump-doj-barr/index.html
Trump intensifies assault on rule of law as he fights for reelection
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 12:12 AM ET, Wed September 9, 2020
(CNN) President Donald Trump on Tuesday went further than ever before in putting the degradation of the rule of law at the center of his reelection campaign.
Trump called on his supporters in North Carolina to act as poll watchers, to watch out for "thieving, and stealing and robbing" that he is warning without evidence will taint Election Day. He made his call at a packed rally in Winston-Salem where he and many of his fans made a mockery of the state's mask mandate -- as well as the advice of his own government amid a pandemic that has killed nearly 190,000 Americans and was exacerbated by his prioritizing politics over science.
But most shockingly, and in one of the most stunning maneuvers in the modern history of the Department of Justice, government lawyers Tuesday applied to take over the defense of Trump in a defamation lawsuit filed against him by a woman who accused him of rape in the 1990s.
The move will inflame claims that Attorney General William Barr, who misrepresented the Mueller report and has intervened in other highly political cases that are inconvenient to the President, is acting as Trump's personal lawyer and desecrating his department's traditional role.