During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump said he would be turning things upside down, and he has kept his promises. All one has to do is to read the latest edition of the New York Times to see how the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is responding: rage, rage, and more rage, as the following editorial declares:
President Trump’s determination to bend the American justice system to his will, combined with his broad tolerance for political corruption and his abhorrence of checks and balances on his power, slammed hard last week into the commitment to duty, honor and the rule of law shared by a group of federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and Washington, D.C. The confrontation between Mr. Trump’s lieutenants at the Justice Department — led by his former personal defense lawyer Emil Bove III — and Manhattan’s interim U.S. attorney, Danielle Sassoon, and her colleagues is the clearest example yet of this administration’s efforts to bake quid pro quo deal making, coercive tactics, loyalty tests and other dishonorable practices into American government and warp its long-held principle of equal justice before the law.
The editorial goes on to describe the federal law enforcement apparatus as something one might see on the FBI shows that dominate the CBS network Tuesday nights. That FBI is one in which all agents are impervious to corruption and are crack investigators and crime solvers who rescue the victims of capitalism and white supremacy in the nick of time. However, the real FBI hardly matches the hagiographic portrayal given to it on network TV.
The NYT—along with most legacy media and the Washington establishment—has railed against his cabinet and agency picks, such as National Security Director Tulsi Gabbard as being outsiders who are “unfit for office.” This is being portrayed as “unprecedented,” yet Jimmy Carter’s original picks to head the DOJ, FBI, and CIA all faced serious opposition, with Sen. Joe Biden being the one who killed the CIA nomination of Theodore Sorenson because these nominees were seen as being “outsiders.” Furthermore, Carter found his own administration accused of firing a US Attorney David Marston, who was investigating allegations of corruption against two Democratic members of Congress, in order to cover up legal wrongdoing.
In other words, what Trump is doing is not totally unprecedented, but certainly the extent of what Elon Musk and his DOGE group are doing is beyond anything we have seen in our lifetimes. However, the expanse of the federal government is much greater than anything that can be justified in a free (or at least once-free) society and needs to be challenged no matter who does it. How one responds to the current chaos depends upon one’s view of the federal government apparatus and its contributions to our daily lives.
Are US Attorneys Selfless Public Servants?
The editorial pages of outfits like the NYT would have us believe that the US attorneys that resigned after the Trump DOJ called for corruption charges to be dropped against New York Mayor Eric Adams were just selfless public servants wanting justice to be done. While I have not looked deeply into those charges and therefore do not feel comfortable in addressing their veracity, I have enough experience researching federal prosecutors and the FBI to be skeptical of their actions. […]
— Read More: mises.org