A Washington Post columnist on Monday evening said she found herself unexpectedly agreeing with something Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) said — calling his statement, "True — and terrifying."
Ruth Marcus wrote Monday that much to her "surprise," she found a point of agreement with former President Donald Trump's running mate: that the most important job after president of the United States in a possible Trump-Vance administration is "who we select as attorney general."
Vance was asked Sunday on ABC’s “This Week" about his answer, to which Marcus said he gave a "Trumpian gaslighting with a coating of Yale Law School sophistry."
“We really want the American people to believe that we have a fair and equitable administration of justice,” Vance said. “If not, the entire sort of system falls apart. You need people to believe that if the attorney general prosecutes somebody, it’s motivated by justice and law, and not by politics.”
The statement, Marcus noted, is factually correct — but argued no one has done more to undermine that the public's confidence in the rule of law.
"Trump did his best to politicize the Justice Department in his first term; he has vowed to more than double down if he wins a second. But that hasn’t stopped him — dutifully amplified by Vance — from accusing the Biden administration of 'weaponizing' the criminal justice system against its opponents," she said.
Marcus then tore down the GOP argument that Democrats have weaponized the Justice Department against them, noting that Attorney General Merrick Garland has prosecuted and convicted Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and indicted Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) as well as Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams. All Democrats.
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As for Trump, it wasn't for lack of trying that his political enemies weren't "locked up," she said. He's vowed to go after the "Biden crime family" and said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) “frankly should have been put in jail.”
"Vance’s response to all this? Legalistic sentence-parsing and brazen assertions about Trump’s supposed commitment to free speech," said Marcus.
She warned again about the importance of the attorney general.
"In another Trump administration, if it comes to that, the attorney general will wield enormous power. If you believe that official will be chosen to do anything other than follow Trump’s bidding, you haven’t been paying attention for the past nine years," said Marcus.
