General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Forgive me if I roll my eyes at your precious outrage about torture. [View all]True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)Nothing stops a President from saying "I want the Justice Department to do this."
Nothing stops an Attorney General from saying "The President has...and thus I....do this."
But actions have consequences.
Congress has the vaguely-delineated authority to impeach Presidents for abuse of power.
If anyone tried to impeach Obama for influencing the Justice Department's DOMA decision, they'd be laughed out of Washington.
But if Barack Obama told the Justice Department to prosecute key figures of his own political opposition - if he even appeared to be hinting that it should happen and it did - he would be impeached and convicted, because the full weight of the Pentagon and all of its political relationships, the CIA and all of its political relationships, all the contractors who might be held liable in civil court, everyone with anything to lose whatsoever would come down against him.
Supporters would be disorganized and picked off one by one with bribes and threats, both as extravagant as necessary. The media would straight-up lie about what was happening, and more than half the American people would probably believe he was being impeached for trying to launch some kind of dictatorial coup.
And that's for just rhetorically pushing it. Actually firing an Attorney General for failing to prosecute would be such a nakedly Nixonian politicization of the Justice Department, that some the douchier cornball progressives would probably support impeachment on principle.
You clearly haven't thought this through.
I've said elsewhere and I'll say again: The key to war crimes prosecution is to first politically isolate the highest-priority targets.
That's extremely difficult because the Bush family's influence is global, and has a personal network in the CIA through Bush Sr's relationships (he was a former DCI).