PUBLISHED BY The Washington Post
The 5 - Minute Fix
Keeping up with politics is easy now.February 18, 2025
By Amber Phillips
Every day, it seems like another government prosecutor resigns rather than carry out orders from President Donald Trump’s allies in the Justice Department.
It’s part of mounting evidence, experts warn, that his administration is trying to use the Justice Department — the nation’s law-enforcement agency, which is armed with significant resources to go after bad guys — to instead help him politically and prosecute his own enemies.
“What’s happening right now is pretty alarming so far,” said Evan Gotlob, a former federal prosecutor in New York City in the first Trump administration, now with Lucosky Brookman law firm. “This is unprecedented.”
What’s happening
Last week, government prosecutors said they felt pressured to drop a case for political reasons. This week, a prosecutor said she felt pressured to investigate a program for political reasons. In both situations, these lawyers resigned rather than carry out the Trump Justice Department orders.
A top prosecutor resigned Tuesday in D.C. rather than act on Justice Department orders to freeze and potentially seize billions of dollars of a Biden-era climate change program, The Washington Post reported.
“When I explained that the quantum of evidence did not support this action, you stated that you believe that there was sufficient evidence,” the veteran prosecutor wrote in her resignation letter.
Last week, more than half a dozen prosecutors in New York and Washington resigned rather than drop a corruption case against New York’s mayor. Some of these prosecutors have solidly conservative records and even expressed sympathetic views in favor of the administration.
Their resignation letters are telling, with each taking care to mark the red lines they felt the Trump Justice Department was asking them to cross:
- “It is a breathtaking and dangerous precedent to reward [New York Mayor Eric] Adams’s opportunistic and shifting commitments on immigration and other policy matters with dismissal of a criminal indictment.”
- “Our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, this way. … I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”
- “I can no longer serve the department I love.”
Why it matters
Legal experts say these are deeply disturbing resignations that reflect the Trump administration's attempt to bend the rule of law potentially to the breaking point — which would be a step toward a more authoritarian state where a small group of people amass much of the power.
“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump declared on social media recently, a quote often attributed to one of the world’s most infamous dictators, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Yet the Justice Department is built on the principle that “a prosecutor may not consider partisan politics in any way in making a charging decision,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney now at the University of Michigan Law School. These outgoing prosecutors allege the Trump administration is trying to turn that on its head by using politics to make charging decisions.
“If it is true that DOJ leadership was pushing to indict someone based on political alliances instead of evidence,” she wrote in a text message, “then this would be a gross abuse of a prosecutor’s power.”
Practically speaking, these resignations mean that top prosecutorial positions — some of the nation’s most important and powerful jobs for going after criminals and corruption — could be filled by people who are unqualified and/or politically motivated.
All of that will put more power in the hands of a president and his deputies who have expressed disdain for the rule of law, said Kimberly Wehle, with the University of Baltimore Law School and author of the newsletter “Simple Politics.”
As for why that matters? She likened the rule of law to speeding: “A speed limit doesn’t slow down drivers. It’s the ticket for speeding that does,” she said. “The rule of law is the mechanism to ensure that too much power doesn’t amass in one place — because unlimited power is abused. It’s just human nature.”
“We are going to see a lot more of this,” Wehle warned. “This is what he promised.”
Amber's picks
Trump administration orders Pentagon to plan for sweeping budget cuts
Analysis Aaron Blake
Trump’s dark anti-Ukraine turn
After ceding power of the purse, GOP lawmakers beg Trump team for funds
New EV batteries are making electric cars cheaper and safer
Cheering Kash Patel’s nomination: A group of ex-FBI agents turned critics
Months after Hurricane Helene, North Carolina farms are still in crisis
What are you curious about in politics?
Follow Amber Phillips on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Must Reads
Get a curated selection of 10 of our best stories in your inbox every Saturday.
Sign up ➝
No comments:
Post a Comment