THREAD on stunning story about Trump wanting to prosecute opponents. 1st This is a very carefully written and exceptionally well explained piece by @maggieNYT and @nytmike on what happened, how comports with historical practice, and why so troubling /1: nytimes.com/2018/11/20/us/…
We @protctdemocracy have been warning about this danger since Trump took office. Autocrats historically try to turn law enforcement into a partisan weapon against opponents and shield for supporters. For tons more background on this issue see here /2: protectdemocracy.org/independent-la…
In the past, protecting law enforcement independence from WH interference was done via a set of rules that covered WH staff. Presidents voluntarily complied with the spirit of those rules as well. You can see a summary of them here /3: scribd.com/document/37144…
Those rules derive from principles in the constitution, including guarantees of due process, equal protection and the President's oath to "faithfully" execute the law. An explanation of how those constitutional principles apply to this story is here /4: protectdemocracy.org/resource-libra…
The constitutional principles that are designed to prevent presidential interference in the independent enforcement of the law were also explained in this brief filed by @PreetBharara @JohnWDean @JoyceWhiteVance and more bipartisan former DOJ officials /5: protectdemocracy.org/resource-libra…
This week @lawfareblog unearthed fascinating history about how President Nixon disregarded many of these principles. His actions specifically in this regard were central to the impeachment movement in Congress and his resignation. That story is here /6: lawfareblog.com/what-watergate…
We now know from @maggieNYT and @nytmike that the President is very willing to use DOJ to prosecute opponents and that the only thing stopping him before were lawyers unwilling to do his bidding. Their departure and arrival of a loyalist as AG is therefore deeply concerning. /7
Founders anticipated this very danger & interposed Senate consent rule to stop POTUS installing loyalist as AG. Its why we, @MyConstitution and S Blumenthal, Whitehouse and Hirono sued to challenge the apptment as reported by @charlie_savage @npfandos /8: nytimes.com/2018/11/19/us/…
The @maggieNYT @nytmike story reveals that we can no longer rely on soft guardrails to prevent a President from weaponizing DOJ. One proposal for how Congress could step in and strengthen protections against what Trump tried to do is here /9: protectdemocracy.org/roadmap-for-re…
We're sharing this proposal with Members of Congress and suggest others do the same. Congress should investigate and enact reforms to prevent this or any future president from corrupting the independence of federal law enforcement. protectdemocracy.org/roadmap-for-re… END
