The Patriot Post® · Trump's Lawfare Push Is Damaging the DOJ

A desire for revenge is not a recipe for arriving at justice. Indeed, the history of the world’s worst instances of injustice has been rooted in a thirst for revenge.

True justice must be impartial and avoid the stench of retribution. That Lady Justice is depicted blindfolded, holding a scale, is a visual representation of this principle. It is the fundamental principle upon which the American system of jurisprudence is founded.

Tit-for-tat is understandably tempting, but it does no one any good and certainly doesn’t promote a common justice. Rather, it promotes a Hatfields-and-McCoys dynamic in which two offended parties end up locked in a continuous back-and-forth battle, invariably destroying each other.

There is no question that Donald Trump suffered an unprecedented degree of lawfare at the hands of the Biden administration, Democrats, and the Washington deep state. In fact, there’s a good argument that this unjust lawfare campaign actually helped to propel his 2024 election victory, as it rightly offended a majority of the American electorate.

Obviously, it offended Trump as well. Unfortunately, he appears to be making the same lawfare blunder as his predecessor. And it may not only hurt Republican efforts to maintain majority control of Congress in the midterms but also damage Trump’s own efforts to fully realize his transformative America First agenda.

Furthermore, Trump’s lawfare actions against his political enemies are further eroding Americans’ trust in our justice system.

There is little question that James Comey, Latisha James, Adam Schiff, and others engaged in politically motivated lawfare efforts against Trump. His desire to see them held to account for their abuse of power is understandable, but Trump demanding that his Justice Department prosecute them over questionable issues, which has already failed in the case of Comey and James, is not solving the problem. If anything, it is setting a terrible precedent, where the party that gains power uses it to prosecute political opponents as if they were criminals.

This brings us to the Justice Department’s decision to investigate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, allegedly over his testimony before Congress last summer regarding the central bank building’s renovation costs. The concern is that he intentionally misled the lawmakers.

However, it’s no secret that Trump has repeatedly butted heads with Powell — whom he appointed in his first term — over the Fed chair’s refusal to move at the pace the president desired to lower interest rates. This week, he redirected attention to renovations at the Fed: “Well, he’s billions of dollars over budget. So, he either is incompetent, or he is crooked. I don’t know what he is, but he certainly doesn’t do a very good job.”

Of course, Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, dismissed any suggestion that the investigation into Powell was politically motivated. “None of this would have happened if [the Federal Reserve] had just responded to our outreach,” Pirro said. “This office makes decisions based on the merits, nothing more and nothing less.”

A number of Republican lawmakers aren’t buying it, though. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis warned, “If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question. I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed — including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy — until this legal matter is fully resolved.”

Critics can dismiss Tillis as a RINO, but Trump will still need 51 Senate votes to confirm the next Federal Reserve chairman in May.

The stench of political motivation may also be undermining the Justice Department’s law enforcement efforts in immigration enforcement. Even with Democrats demonizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as the Gestapo, thereby fomenting anti-ICE protesters and agitators, which resulted in the tragic shooting of agitator Renee Good last week, at least five prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis have resigned in apparent protest.

According to reports, the DOJ’s decision to investigate Good’s “wife,” while also excluding local authorities from investigating the shooting, led to their objections and resignations. The question is, has Trump’s lawfare push presented an opportunity for Democrats to paint a narrative of the DOJ being politically motivated, rather than being independent and focused dispassionately on seeking justice?

A general loss of faith by the American public in the DOJ’s independence is a bad thing. Trump needs to back off on pushing the DOJ to target his political enemies and trust the people he’s chosen to lead the agency to do their job.