Harry Litman - The Irredeemable DOJ
With the indictment of former FBI Director Jim Comey—on spurious charges, against the judgment of career prosecutors, and solely to satisfy the President’s personal vendetta—the Department of Justice crossed over to a new low.
But now, with the indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James—and more reprisal indictments on the immediate horizon—it’s become clear that the corrupt abuse of the law to go after Trump’s adversaries is a principal mission of this Department of Justice. Far from a one-off, it’s the Department’s new business model.
I’ve explained before why bringing cases at the President’s insistence—not as acts of justice, but as political reprisals against his enemies—is as abhorrent a violation of the Constitution and DOJ norms as we’ve ever seen. It offends both the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause, flouts the Principles of Federal Prosecution that have served as the bible for federal prosecutors for generations, and betrays the most basic notions of impartial justice in any democracy.
Any prosecutor knows this to her marrow. It is the literal antithesis of the DOJ’s watchword of justice without fear or favor. That principle used to separate us from the corrupt justice systems that serve the personal whims of tyrants like Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/the-irredeemable-doj