Trump’s DOJ Is Systematically Launching Bogus Lawsuits Against its Enemies to Harass Them

The Trump administration keeps threatening its enemies with legal retribution, only to have the cases fail—as was the case with the six members of Congress whose video urged members of the military not to follow illegal orders. But the underlying story is that this legal harassment, even if it is ultimately unsuccessful, is fueled by the government systematically lying in court.

The Guardian provides a good overview:

In recent months, the federal government has relentlessly prosecuted protesters, government critics, immigrants and others arrested during immigration operations, often accusing them of physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties.

But many of those cases have recently been dismissed or ended in not guilty verdicts.

In several high-profile cases, the prosecutions fell apart because they relied on statements by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers that had no supporting evidence or in some instances were proven by video footage to be blatantly false.

Criminal defense lawyers said it was unusual for federal prosecutors to pursue a high volume of charges over minor clashes with law enforcement, and that it was extraordinary to see the DoJ lose case after case across jurisdictions.

Still, the costs for defendants, even if ultimately exonerated, have been enormous, with many having their mugshots blasted by the government and some forced to languish in jail or have criminal charges hang over them for weeks and months.

When the federal government files false charges against someone, the process is the punishment. By peddling provable lies in court, Trump’s Department of Justice is hoping it can deter dissent by imposing legal costs and disrupting the lives of anyone it chooses to target, no matter how clearly innocent they are of any crime.

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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