Pardons for friends, retribution for foes

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump spent much of the last four years decrying Justice Department prosecutions against him and his supporters, and one of his first executive orders in January said it sought to end the “weaponization of prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process.”

But since then, Trump has used the power of his office for actions that critics and experts say inject politics into federal investigations and prosecutions, such as memorandums last month initiating government investigations into actions of two former officials who have been critical of him.

Trump wiped away the criminal cases of his supporters for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, has given pardons for supporters and erstwhile allies. The Justice Department since January has dropped a high-profile criminal case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, and made personnel moves that target employees involved in the investigations of Trump and the criminal probes of rioters.

The result has been some DOJ resignations and public criticism, but little pushback from Republican lawmakers.

For his part, Trump has cast it as a house cleaning of sorts after the Biden administration. In a speech at the Justice Department, itself rare for a sitting president, Trump proclaimed himself the “chief law enforcement officer in our country” and vowed to root out “rogue actors and corrupt forces” within the government.

“We’re turning the page on four long years of corruption, weaponization and surrender to violent criminals, and we’re restoring fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law,” Trump said.

But other critics say it is Trump who has crossed a line. Gregg Nunziata, executive director for the Society for the Rule of Law who previously worked for Republican senators, has called Trump’s actions “deeply un-American.”

“From the first days in office, there has been a pattern in pardons, in personnel, in the policies of using the powers of government to reward the president’s friends and allies and punish his perceived enemies,” Nunziata said.

“That is the rule of a man out for his own interest and that is an assault on the full protection of the law and notions of fair play that our society, our country, depend on.”

Krebs and Taylor

Trump signed memorandums last month stripping security clearances and initiating government investigations into actions of Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, two former officials who have been critical of him.

Taylor worked for the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration and published an op-ed and later book titled “A Warning” about alleged oversteps of the administration. Krebs served as the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS during the first Trump administration and has drawn criticism from Trump for defending the integrity of the 2020 election from Trump’s baseless claims of fraud.

Following Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, Krebs asserted that claims of fraud were “unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent” and authorized the issuance of a statement that the election was secure. Trump fired him by tweet shortly after that.

Krebs also served as a witness in the House panel investigating the 2021 attack on the Capitol, where he said that Trump and Republicans “lied to the American people about the security of the 2020 election.”

Nunziata called the memorandum against Krebs and Trump’s statements about it “absolutely shocking.”

“This is the president of the United States putting the investigatory powers of his government against one man for the perceived crime of telling the truth,” Nunziata said. “That is an absolute abuse of his office, and I think plainly an impeachable offense.”

The Krebs and Taylor memorandums came after Trump and his allies in Congress spent much of the Biden administration warning of politicization at the DOJ, arguing that there was a two-tier system of justice — one for most of the country and one for opponents of the president.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., a former state attorney general and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, defended Trump’s Krebs memorandum and comments as exercising “the quintessential law enforcement function,” of the presidency.

Hawley said it was not politicizing law enforcement, contrasting with President Joe Biden’s comments referring to Trump as a “crook.”

“That was politicizing the DOJ by deliberately interfering in a presidential election. This was his opponent, who was an announced candidate for president when he did this,” Hawley said.

“I’m sure that if there’s nothing to it, then there’ll be nothing to it,” Hawley said.

The offices of Senate Judiciary Chair Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, did not return requests for comment on the Krebs or Taylor memorandums or the DOJ’s decision to drop the Adams case.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said there’s been no evidence that Krebs violated the law or said anything incorrect about the 2020 election, and that Krebs “worked really hard at difficult tasks and who got it right.”

“MAGA and Trump want to exercise narrative dominance, and if it means hurting and humiliating people who are saying things that they don’t want the public to hear, they will do that,” Whitehouse said.

Whitehouse said prosecutions are meant to begin with investigators finding a factual basis for wrongdoing, not public pronouncements.

“Trump crossed an extremely important line in the direction of evil and the fact that Republicans are so cowed that they won’t call out that line crossing is a bad sign for where we are,” Whitehouse said.

Adams case

Last year, the DOJ brought a five-count indictment against Adams, alleging that he committed wire fraud, bribery, solicited illegal campaign contributions and more as part of a long-running relationship with Turkish officials in New York.

Adams pleaded not guilty and maintained his innocence. Then the Justice Department moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that it interfered with Adams’ ability to help Trump’s immigration priorities.

In a letter entered into the court record in the case, now-former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Danielle Sassoon laid out her reasoning for refusing to seek dismissal of the Adams case after meeting with Emil Bove, an associate deputy attorney general.

Sassoon was selected as acting U.S. attorney by the Trump administration but resigned in February rather than seek dismissal in the Adams case. Four other prosecutors also withdrew from the case before Bove himself moved to have it dismissed without prejudice — meaning it could have been brought again at any time.

In his opinion dismissing the Adams case Judge Dale Ho of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote that dismissing the case as the DOJ wished would create the “unavoidable perception” that Adams’ freedom depended on his adherence to Trump’s immigration priorities. Ho dismissed the case with prejudice, keeping it from being brought again.

“Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions,” Ho wrote.

Dan Richman, a law professor at Columbia University and former federal prosecutor at the Southern District of New York, said that behavior like the Adams case undermines faith that prosecutors are pursuing cases because of the facts involved.

“A prosecutor gets up and says they represent the United States. For some time jurors will start thinking, ‘Well, not really, he’s just carrying water for the president.’ And as soon as that happens, the whole promise, the promise of a federal criminal justice system that at least tries to pursue cases without fear or favor in politics goes out the window,” Richman said.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he intends to block Trump’s appointments for U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York over Trump’s attacks on the rule of law.

“Donald Trump has made clear he has no fidelity to the law and intends to use the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney offices and law enforcement as weapons to go after his perceived enemies,” Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said in a statement.

Pardons

His first day in office, Trump issued more than 1,000 pardons and commutations for participants in the 2021 attack on the Capitol, including defendants convicted of assaults on police officers, bringing weapons to the Capitol and seditious conspiracy to overturn the government.

Since then, Trump has pardoned numerous others who praised him or served as a witness against political rivals, including former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and supporter Tervor Milton. He also pardoned Devon Archer and commuted the sentence of Jason Galanis, former business partners of Hunter Biden who served as witnesses in the House probe against the former president.

House Democrats have also cried foul over the return of outspoken Trump supporters the Tate brothers to the U.S. despite facing rape and sex trafficking charges in Romania – alleging in a letter that the Trump administration intervened to secure their release.

Nunziata said the pardons set up a permission structure: demonstrating that people who ally themselves with Trump face fewer consequences. He contrasted those actions with last-minute pardons from the Biden and Obama administration — and said they don’t compare.

“I think none of it, even taken at the worst, seeing them in the worst light, adds up to this kind of comprehensive undermining of the rule of law and use of government to advance the political or personal agenda of one man,” Nunziata said.

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—Ryan Tarinelli contributed to this report.