President Trump is once again weaponizing the legal system to fulfill his personal vendettas. Last year, before he could point to a single crime that he claimed she had committed, Mr. Trump called for the prosecution of New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who was suing him for fraudulent business dealing. On Thursday the Justice Department secured an indictment against Ms. James, alleging bank fraud.
The story behind the indictment says it all. A federal prosecutor decided recently that there was not enough evidence to bring charges against Ms. James. In a normal administration, that would have been the end of the case. But Mr. Trump did not take no for an answer. He forced that prosecutor’s resignation and in a social media post last month demanded that Attorney General Pam Bondi appoint a new prosecutor: Lindsey Halligan, a Trump ally and insurance lawyer who had never prosecuted a case.
He also demanded that Ms. Halligan pursue charges against both Ms. James and James Comey, the former director of the F.B.I. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” At Ms. Halligan’s request, a grand jury indicted Mr. Comey on Sept. 25 and then Ms. James.
The charges relate to mortgage paperwork that Ms. James filed when she bought a house in Virginia in 2020. Previous prosecutors did not find sufficient evidence that Ms. James was knowingly dishonest, and legal experts say the charges are flimsy at best. Even if the Justice Department ultimately loses in court, the legal fight will demand Ms. James’s time and money. It signals to politicians and the public that opposing the president has a cost, including the explicit threat of imprisonment.
Mr. Trump and his supporters claim that Democrats started this era of “lawfare” with their investigations into him. Yet those investigations were vastly different. Special counsels, chosen to operate more independently than typical prosecutors, carried out the federal inquiries into Mr. Trump. One special counsel during the Biden administration even investigated Joe Biden himself for his handling of classified documents. And the investigations into Mr. Trump came in response to his alarming actions, not dubious claims of mortgage problems but efforts to overturn the outcome of a presidential election. The investigations followed a potential crime, not a personal vendetta.
America is now in a dangerous period, in which the president can order investigations and indictments against his enemies. Mr. Trump is criminalizing Americans’ ability to challenge their leaders.
In the popular imagination, the state’s infringement on individual liberty is usually the work of spies or the military. But few branches of government have the power to take away our freedoms that the Justice Department does. It can ask courts to put you in prison, mark your life with a criminal record and, even if you are found not guilty, tie you up in yearslong legal battles that drain your finances and destroy your personal standing. “The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty and reputation than any other person in America,” the former Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson said when he served as attorney general.
Cognizant of these concerns, presidents since Watergate have mostly tried to insulate the Justice Department from politics. The system has not been perfect, but it has mostly worked. Americans have generally trusted the federal government to avoid sham prosecutions.
Mr. Trump has eroded this system from within. His replacement of a career prosecutor with a crony is only one example. He has staffed the Justice Department and the F.B.I. with loyalists. His administration has pushed out lawyers who investigated misconduct and corruption. He has tried to punish law firms that represent his political opponents. He has repeatedly warned officials, sometimes in public social media posts, that they should not go against him. He has sent a message that federal law enforcement’s main concern should be not the country’s laws or the Constitution but his personal interests.
Just as telling as the cases Mr. Trump’s Justice Department has initiated are those it has dropped. This year the department closed an investigation into Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, even though he was recorded accepting a bag of $50,000 in cash by undercover F.B.I. agents.
Many legal experts have spoken out. “These political prosecutions need to stop,” wrote Richard Painter, who was a White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, after Ms. James was indicted. He called for an impeachment inquiry into Ms. Bondi. Most Republicans, however, have remained quiet, fearful of the president.
Mr. Comey and Ms. James’s indictments may be just the beginning. Mr. Trump has also demanded the prosecution of one of his most prominent Democratic opponents, Senator Adam Schiff of California. He posted on social media this week that Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago should go to jail for opposing his mass deportation efforts. His Justice Department has proved all too willing to turn such social media posts, no matter how baseless, into indictments.
The damage is not just to Mr. Comey, Ms. James and anyone else who is prosecuted. It is also to the foundations of American democracy and law.
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