A few former officials from the Justice Department who worked under President Trump in his first term are concerned that if he is re-elected, the Supreme Court’s recent decision to grant immunity to the department may facilitate his use of it against his opponents.
Some former officials minimized the significance of the decision, or even supported it.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, two former Justice Department officials predicted that Donald Trump would feel more empowered by the decision. They claimed that by claiming he was carrying out his official presidential duties, Trump would have cover to inappropriately pressure the Justice Department for his own political gain, such as pressing it to prosecute an enemy or ease up on an ally.
Referring to the Supreme Court decision, a former official who wished to remain anonymous remarked, “It implicitly gives him permission to carry on.” “It positions him to carry out his stated actions, which include looking into people and locking them up.”
Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority decision concluded that Trump was “absolutely immune” from punishment for his efforts to have Justice Department personnel investigate baseless allegations of widespread voting fraud in an effort to change the results of the 2020 election.
“Despite the indictment’s allegations that the sought investigations were shams or intended for illicit purposes, the President nonetheless has sole control over the Justice Department’s investigative and prosecution duties and its personnel,” Roberts stated. “Because the President cannot be prosecuted for actions taken within the scope of his unique constitutional authority, Trump is completely immune from prosecution regarding the alleged behavior surrounding his conversations with Justice Department personnel.”
Trump attempted to designate Jeffrey Clark, a low-level Justice Department official, as acting attorney general on January 3, 2021; Clark hailed the decision. Trump withdrew his appointment of Clark, who endorsed his allegations of voting fraud and was preparing to persuade Georgian officials not to recognize the election results, in response to a half-dozen senior Justice Department officials threatening to leave.
In an interview this week on a podcast, Clark stated, “In collaboration with the Justice Department, he is free to look into whomever he feels like looking into.” By this, he meant any president. “And he has the authority to prosecute anyone he feels like it.”
According to a former official from the Justice Department, the decision offered Trump “tacit approval” and served as a guide for him to evade punishment. He claimed that during his first term, Trump demonstrated his caution in not explicitly requesting that someone break the law. That would continue, the official said.
The former official claimed that Trump never explicitly commands anybody to do anything. He prods, pushes, and implies. He never had to tell these folks what to do. They proceeded and completed it by themselves.
Support for Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concurrence, which would restrict a president’s immunity, was voiced by another former officer in the Justice Department. The former official claimed that Roberts’ broad majority ruling, which stated that investigators could not utilize a president’s correspondence with the attorney general as proof of a crime, was incorrect.
In a scenario reminiscent of Watergate, the former official from the Justice Department stated, “The mere fact that it is a conversation between the president and his attorney general does not mean that it cannot be used as evidence in a criminal prosecution if the president and his attorney general are discussing how to break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters over a late-night drink in the basement.”
Attorney General William Barr’s chief of staff at the Justice Department, Will Levi, disagreed and supported the decision. He insisted that political meddling would not be allowed in criminal investigations and that the majority view was merely restating an enduring constitutional value.
Levi told Bloomberg News, “This is merely an expression of the president’s constitutionally granted authority over the executive branch, which includes the Department of Justice. Making sure a criminal investigation or prosecution is free from undue political intervention is a norm that is both vital and unique.”
Both ruling supporters and opponents agreed that career public workers would have to decline to obey illegal or improper commands from Trump or any other president in the future.
According to a former senior official at the FBI, which is a division of the Justice Department and handles federal criminal investigations, agents will not carry out unlawful orders since they are not completely immune from prosecution and may face consequences for their actions.
According to the former top FBI official, “nobody below the president has absolute immunity.” “Therefore, anyone who engages in this puts themselves in danger from the law.”
who was foolish, according to the first former Justice Department official whom Trump openly criticized for a position he espoused. He declared that the decision would “embolden” Trump and that he would carry on his first term’s strategy of using public attacks to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and stall further inquiries into his actions.
The Justice Department’s ability to carry out its duties is directly hampered by the use of Trump’s tweets, in which he openly criticizes government workers and prosecutors, frequently mentioning them by name. Prosecutors are intimidated into taking actions they might not otherwise take. Citing his own personal experience, the official stated, “It is obviously a way to put pressure on employees.” “Having to be on the receiving end of it is difficult for a career civil servant.”