FBI<\/a> investigatino into Russia\u2019s efforts to influence the 2016 elections and obstruction of Congress.<\/p>\nAlthough Trump gloated on Truth Social that the charges against Comey achieved \u201cJUSTICE IN AMERICA!\u2019, scholars and ex-prosecutors say his heavy handed-pressure tactics on the justice department to secure the charges could backfire by tainting the case. Further, critics stress that Trump\u2019s interference in prosecutorial matters represents a dangerous break with decades of separating the White House from the justice department in prosecutorial decisions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the Watergate era, communications between the White House and the DoJ have been strictly limited to avoid even the appearance of politically motivated prosecutions,\u201d said former US attorney for eastern Michigan prosecutor Barbara McQuade, who now teaches law at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s replacement of a prosecutor who reportedly declined to charge Comey with his own White House aide destroys any pretense of DoJ independence. Under Trump, the justice department is now just one more political tool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Comey, who has denied the charges, posted a video on Instagram, saying: \u201cMy heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I\u2019m innocent. So, let\u2019s have a trial and keep the faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
The zealousness of Trump\u2019s revenge campaign against Comey and other foes \u2013 including New York attorney general Letitia James and California Democratic senator Adam Schiff \u2013 was revealed in a series of Trump\u2019s Truth Social posts directed at attorney general Pam Bondi.<\/p>\n
The day after Siebert\u2019s ouster, Trump raged at Bondi that the failure to bring criminal charges against top foes including Comey, James and Schiff was \u201ckilling our reputation and credibility\u201d and that \u201cwe can\u2019t delay any longer\u201d.<\/p>\n
Trump, in his message addressed to \u201cPam\u201d, stressed what he perceived as the stakes: \u201cThey impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Further, Trump belittled Siebert, who had resigned the day before after Trump said \u201cI want him out\u201d for claiming \u201cthat we had no case\u201d. But Trump boasted that \u201cthere is a GREAT CASE\u201d to charge Comey.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s laser-like drive to punish Comey \u2013 despite serious internal doubts about the case \u2013 reveals Trump\u2019s disregard for judicial independence, say former prosecutors and scholars.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no longer any attempt to conceal the complete takeover of the DoJ and the FBI by the White House,\u201d ex-DoJ inspector general Michael Bromwich told the Guardian.<\/p>\n
\u201cProsecutors are taught to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. That credo has been replaced by the command to do what the White House says, whether or not there are any facts or law to support the decision to prosecute. The Comey indictment shows this new credo: do the wrong thing in the wrong way for the wrong reasons. It is chilling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bromwich added: \u201cImagine the pall that the decision to replace Erik Seibert with yet another Trump personal defense lawyer with no criminal law experience casts over the eastern district of Virginia US attorney\u2019s office. The widely admired and respected head of the office was replaced because he took his oath seriously and refused to bring charges based on little or no evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The weakness of the case was underscored, say experts, when only 14 of 23 grand jurors impaneled to hear the charges voted to convict, and Halligan was the lone prosecutor to sign the brief indictment.<\/p>\n
Some prominent lawyers who worked on Watergate prosecutions are also appalled at Trump\u2019s tactics to go after Comey.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the resignation of the former US attorney illustrates, the president\u2019s insistence that the DoJ find some basis for prosecuting Comey conflicts with the department\u2019s own principles of federal prosecution, which expressly prohibits federal prosecutors from taking political motives into account in determining whether criminal charges are appropriate,\u201d Philip Lacovara, who was counsel for the Watergate special prosecutor, told the Guardian.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump\u2019s blatant misuse of the justice department and manipulation of the grand jury offends basic principles of constitutional law. The president\u2019s primary constitutional responsibility is to see to it that the laws are \u2018faithfully executed\u2019. The naked intent to use the criminal process for the purpose of \u2018punishing\u2019 a perceived personal \u2018enemy\u2019 dishonors that obligation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scholars, too, believe Trump\u2019s brass-knuckle tactics may backfire. They caution there could be some major snags in obtaining convictions due to Trump\u2019s public pressures to bring charges, moves that defense lawyers can use to persuade grand juries and courts that the charges are tainted.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy repeatedly and publicly declaring Comey, James and Schiff \u2018guilty as hell\u2019, Trump has made a fair trial for them impossible while he\u2019s president and maybe for ever,\u201d New York University law professor Stephen Gillers told the Guardian.<\/p>\n
\u201cJurors must make their decisions based only on the evidence admitted in court. Trump\u2019s public accusations of guilt are not admissible in evidence, but jurors will be aware of them and could be improperly influenced. A fair trial is impossible when the president has already declared the defendant guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n
McQuade also cautioned that the justice department flouted basic prosecutorial rules on the Comey case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe DoJ\u2019s principles of federal prosecution prohibit prosecutors from considering partisan politics in charging decisions,\u201d adding that Trump in going after Comey effectively acted as \u201cinvestigator, prosecutor, and jury\u201d.<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, Trump used Truth Social to celebrate the news of Comey\u2019s indictment by writing: \u201cHe has been so bad for our Country, for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump signaled after Comey was charged that he expected and hoped there would be more indictments against old foes who he has long blamed for political and legal woes.<\/p>\n
Leaving the White House the day after Comey\u2019s indictment, Trump told reporters: \u201cFrankly, I hope there are others, because you can\u2019t let this happen to a country.\u201d<\/p>\n
James and Schiff are clearly on Trump\u2019s revenge radar for prosecutions as he indicated in his Truth Social posts.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s ire at the New York attorney general, who the justice department has been investigating over alleged mortgage fraud, which James has denied, seems tied heavily to a successful civil fraud case her office brought against Trump\u2019s real estate empire last year with a $500m penalty.<\/p>\n
Although the hefty penalty was overturned last month, Trump and his two eldest sons are still barred from holding leadership posts with the real-estate giant for a few years.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Trump\u2019s animosity towards Schiff dates back to when the senator served in the House and acted as manager during Trump\u2019s first impeachment. Schiff is also under scrutiny by the office of the US attorney in Maryland for alleged mortgage fraud, which he has denied.<\/p>\n
On social media the weekend before Comey\u2019s indictment, Schiff responded to Trump\u2019s Truth Social posts that \u201cthere\u2019s no hiding the political retaliation and weaponization. It\u2019s all out in the open.\u201d<\/p>\n
The roots of Trump\u2019s animus towards Comey go back to his first presidency and his 2016 campaign. Comey led the FBI in 2016 when it began investigations into possible ties between his campaign and Russia\u2019s efforts to boost him in the election over Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n
Comey was fired in 2017 by Trump who still fumes at investigations into what he called the \u201cRussia hoax\u201d, even though a bipartisan Senate panel led by Republicans concluded in 2020 that the Kremlin mounted a drive to influence the 2016 election with an eye to boosting Trump. A 1,000-page Senate panel report also concluded that Trump\u2019s campaign advisers had a web of contacts with Russians including some Kremlin officials and intelligence operatives in 2016 that posed a \u201cgrave\u201d counterintelligence threat.<\/p>\n
Ex-prosecutors say Trump\u2019s heavy-handed pressure tactics to have his enemies charged with crimes recalls the style of authoritarian rulers and could backfire when the case goes to trial.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s interference in the cases \u201cis extremely dangerous and frightening\u201d, Randall Eliason, an ex-federal prosecutor who now teaches law at George Washington University, told the Guardian. \u201cTrump is brazenly demanding that prosecutors bring cases to punish his political opponents, whether or not the cases have any merit. That\u2019s the act of an authoritarian, not a US president who respects the rule of law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe respected, career US attorney in Virginia apparently did his job by refusing to bring unfounded cases. Halligan\u2019s main qualification presumably is her willingness to do whatever Trump wants.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a blogpost days before Comey\u2019s indictment, Eliason predicted that if Comey or James were charged by Virginia prosecutors, \u201cthe defense will move to dismiss the charges based on legal doctrines such as vindictive or selective prosecution, and Trump\u2019s own social media posts will be exhibit 1\u201d.<\/p>\n
Little wonder that Democrats, too, are sounding alarms about Trump\u2019s unprecedented involvement in the Comey charges and pressing the justice department and the Trump administration<\/a> for information about Siebert\u2019s ouster and his replacement by Halligan.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s perfectly clear that Trump is trying to turn the modern rule of law into a system of vengeance, retribution and blood feud,\u201d Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin, who taught constitutional law for over two decades, told the Guardian. \u201cThis is a huge break from centuries of evolution in our criminal justice system and constitutional structures.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s public and private push to have ex-FBI director James Comey indicted on criminal charges is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-180087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}