Trump Announces that Negative Coverage of Him Is Illegal and Threatens Networks
The Department of Justice is typically insulated from direct control by the president to prevent politically motivated prosecutions. In a speech at the DOJ, Donald Trump threw out that tradition and laid down a roadmap of the politically motivated prosecutions he wants.
The Associated Press reports:
The appearance marked Trump’s clearest exertion yet of personal control over the country’s federal law enforcement apparatus, which is normally run by appointees who keep at least an arm’s length from the president to avoid the appearance that politics are governing prosecutorial decisions. Trump, instead, embraced the notion of the agency as his own personal tool of vengeance.
“As the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred,” Trump told the audience. …
Trump named lawyers and a legal nonprofit that he has tangled with over the years, which could serve as a roadmap for people he would like prosecuted by the officials in the room with him. …
“I believe that CNN and MSDNC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they are really corrupt and they are illegal. What they do is illegal.”
This was a remarkable moment—the president of the United States telling his Department of Justice that he believes the media are illegal because they write bad things about him.
Needless to say … the First Amendment allows political groups to criticize a rival politician. It certainly allows the media to do so, regardless of any perceived ideological bias.
That “needless to say” is self-refuting. The First Amendment protects the freedom of the press and the right of lawyers to “petition the government for a redress of grievances”—and that is going to need a lot of restating in answer to Trump and anyone at the DOJ who follows these orders.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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