Syndicated columnist Susan Estrich: Weaponizing the Justice Department

"I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family," Donald Trump announced Tuesday night, June 13, at his golf club after his indictment.

In fact, what was most noticeable this week in Trump's indictment is what you didn't see or hear. You didn't see or hear anything from Merrick Garland, the attorney general, or Joe Biden, the president. This was Jack Smith's show, as it should have been. The special counsel very clearly operated independently, conducted his own investigation, followed his own leads, presented his case to a grand jury sitting in Florida and intends to follow through with his prosecution.

So you didn't see Merrick Garland at any of the press conferences, and you didn't hear the president trying to score political points.Actually, you don't have to imagine anything, because Donald Trump told you all you needed to know. In a second Trump administration, the norm of Justice Department independence, which has governed since Watergate, would be shredded.

The very same Republican conservatives who have attacked Democrats for supposedly"weaponizing" the Justice Department against Trump believe that the department deserves no special status as an independent agency in the federal bureaucracy, that it is just another branch of the executive office and should be treated, and presumably weaponized, as such. Trump wants to use it to destroy the deep state, or so he said.

by signing up you agree to our terms of service It is obviously the height of hypocrisy: to attack the Democrats for weaponizing the Justice Department and then to pledge to outdo them in the process. But consistency has never stopped these ideologues. What is so troubling about these moves against the Justice Department is that they would shred an institution whose independence has been hard-won after difficult battles that proved it was necessary for the rule of law.

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