Former President Donald Trump's partial victory on presidential immunity at the Supreme Court did more than help him out on his legal problems, former Trump administration Justice Department officials warn — it could also embolden him to use the police state to crack down on his political enemies should he be elected.
Specifically, the Supreme Court determined Trump has a presumption of immunity for "official acts" but not "unofficial acts," while offering very little guidance on what the distinction between those is.
According to NBC News, a pair of former DOJ officials "said it would give Trump cover to improperly pressure the Justice Department for his own political benefit — to prosecute an enemy or go easy on an ally — by saying he was executing his official duties as president." One warned: “It gives him tacit approval to keep doing it. It sets him up to do the things he has said: to investigate people and send them to jail.”
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Part of the issue is that the Justice Department has long maintained a policy of independence from the rest of the executive branch — but Chief Justice John Roberts casually wrote in his immunity decision that the president can't be prosecuted for ordering politically motivated investigations, potentially blowing that whole policy up.
Trump has long made threats of jailing his political opponents a theme of his campaign, letting his supporters run wild with chants of "Lock her up," against Hillary Clinton in 2016, and even suggesting that his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley be executed for treason.
Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, an ongoing Trump loyalist who was indicted alongside him in the Georgia election racketeering case for his role in trying to overturn the results in that state, had a similar — if positive — assessment of that.
“He can investigate whom he sees fit to investigate, working with the Justice Department,” he said on a podcast this week. “And he can prosecute whom he sees fit to prosecute.”
