President Trump’s stated view of the subject of DOJ independence is very clear: He does not believe it should exist, or that it ever has. jonathanchait writes
Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images In June of 2016, former president Bill Clinton bumped into Attorney General Loretta Lynch at an airport in Phoenix. The brief social chat inspired headlines such as “Meeting Between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch Provokes Political Furor” and “Democrats Groan After Bill Clinton Meets Loretta Lynch” . From the standpoint of today, these stories read almost as fantastically naïve dispatches from a distant realm.
The ethic of avoiding political interference was like the ocean, and the players on all sides were like the fish. Everybody on all sides treated this ethic as sacrosanct to the principle of law and order. Only from the standpoint of today, when we are all flopping around on dry ground, can we look back and notice it used to be wet.
Trump’s evident satisfaction with the work of Attorney General William Barr is itself evidence that Barr is politicizing the department. But recent days have supplied a flurry of evidence of the progress of Barr’s work to this end. It has gone much farther, much faster, than even his critics feared. The Justice Department confirmed it has opened a special channel for Trump’s personal lawyer to funnel oppo about opposing candidates, a privilege not available to other candidates.
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