Blaming the left for Trump's weaponization of law enforcement means pretending his first term didn't happen

[Nevilledog]

https://www.mediamatters.org/washington-post/blaming-left-trumps-weaponization-law-enforcement-means-pretending-his-first-term

Pundits who portray President Donald Trump's recent steps to secure federal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James as simply a response to prosecutorial efforts to hold Trump accountable after his first term have either forgotten what actually happened during Trump’s first term or are lying to their audiences.

Trump, an authoritarian to his core, repeatedly sought the investigation, prosecution, and imprisonment of his political foes throughout his first four years in the White House. The fact that he's had more success leveling actual criminal charges at his enemies in his second term says far more about the sycophants and toadies with which he's populated the government than about his own demeanor, which has always been laser-focused on using the levers of power to punish his perceived enemies.

On September 20, Trump publicly posted a message to Attorney General Pam Bondi he had reportedly intended to be private, complaining that investigations he had demanded into Comey, James, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) had stalled. He said that he had fired a U.S. attorney who had defied White House demands for politicized prosecutions and recommended Lindsey Halligan, who was serving in the White House after working as Trump’s personal lawyer. Trump subsequently said he had installed Halligan in the vacated U.S. attorney slot, and she obtained charges against Comey and James from a grand jury.

These indictments triggered denunciations from defenders of liberal democracy agog over his decimation of the rule of law and paroxysms of glee from MAGA foot soldiers. But a third category also emerged: conservative pundits who acknowledge that the indictments are politically motivated and improper, but nonetheless claim Democrats contributed to the situation by seeking charges against Trump between his terms in office.

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