- Mar 11, 2015
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So often when Republicans make claims about Democrats or conservatves about the left, they are telling everyone what they want to do. Here we see that during the trump presidency TRUMP was the deep state. Trump weaponized government against perceived enemies or opposition.
Chronology of a Dozen Times Trump Pushed to Prosecute His Perceived Enemies
The cascade of election coverage, commentary and speculation about how Donald Trump might use the power of the presidency to retaliate against his perceived political enemies has overlooked important context: Trump has done just that, while he was president, at least a dozen times.
What follows is a chronological list of specific instances in which the former president in fact used the Department of Justice and other levers of government power — including by directly, publicly or privately, pressuring officials — to target his chosen political adversaries. The record includes several cases in which he apparently succeeded more than might be imagined or remembered.
Two asides are worth addressing before we detail the chronology:
First, the kinds of issues we examine here are related to concerns that a president may also abuse his or her authority by relieving friends and allies from accountability in the justice system. We do not discuss such cases here, but it should be recalled that Trump’s time in office included extraordinary interventions to save Paul Manafort from conditions of confinement, the lighter sentencing of Roger Stone (with federal prosecutors resigning in protest), and dropping the prosecution of Michael Flynn. Along these lines, one might also include pardons and commutations of sentences for individuals such as Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner’s father Charles Kushner, Stone, Manafort, Flynn; and more (not to mention the dangling of pardons).
Second, we do not also chronicle President Joe Biden’s use of the Justice Department because there is no evidence that he or anyone at the White House ever took similar actions. The closest are media reports that Biden confided to his inner circle that he thought Trump should be prosecuted (New York Times) and privately told his aides and advisers that he was disappointed with Attorney General Garland in the speed of the Justice Department’s pursuing the criminal case against Trump (New York Times and Politico). “The president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland,” the New York Times added. The Garland Justice Department also prosecuted the sitting president’s son, without any known interference from the White House.
www.justsecurity.org
Chronology of a Dozen Times Trump Pushed to Prosecute His Perceived Enemies
The cascade of election coverage, commentary and speculation about how Donald Trump might use the power of the presidency to retaliate against his perceived political enemies has overlooked important context: Trump has done just that, while he was president, at least a dozen times.
What follows is a chronological list of specific instances in which the former president in fact used the Department of Justice and other levers of government power — including by directly, publicly or privately, pressuring officials — to target his chosen political adversaries. The record includes several cases in which he apparently succeeded more than might be imagined or remembered.
Two asides are worth addressing before we detail the chronology:
First, the kinds of issues we examine here are related to concerns that a president may also abuse his or her authority by relieving friends and allies from accountability in the justice system. We do not discuss such cases here, but it should be recalled that Trump’s time in office included extraordinary interventions to save Paul Manafort from conditions of confinement, the lighter sentencing of Roger Stone (with federal prosecutors resigning in protest), and dropping the prosecution of Michael Flynn. Along these lines, one might also include pardons and commutations of sentences for individuals such as Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner’s father Charles Kushner, Stone, Manafort, Flynn; and more (not to mention the dangling of pardons).
Second, we do not also chronicle President Joe Biden’s use of the Justice Department because there is no evidence that he or anyone at the White House ever took similar actions. The closest are media reports that Biden confided to his inner circle that he thought Trump should be prosecuted (New York Times) and privately told his aides and advisers that he was disappointed with Attorney General Garland in the speed of the Justice Department’s pursuing the criminal case against Trump (New York Times and Politico). “The president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland,” the New York Times added. The Garland Justice Department also prosecuted the sitting president’s son, without any known interference from the White House.
1. Trump asks then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “unrecuse” himself to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton
Date: Sometime after May 17, 2017 and before July 19, 2017
2. Trump publicly scolds Justice Department for not investigating Clinton
Date: November 2017
3. Sessions directs US Attorney for Utah John W. Huber to investigate Hillary Clinton and Uranium One conspiracy
Date: November 2017 to January 2020
4. Criminal investigation of the Clinton Foundation
Date: On or before January 2018 to January 2021
5. Criminal investigation and near-prosecution of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe
Date: March 16, 2018-February 14, 2020
6. Trump demands investigation into his debunked “Spygate” conspiracy theory
Date: May 20, 2018
7. Trump privately told White House Counsel he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute James Comey and Hillary Clinton
Date: Spring 2018
8. Trump publicly urges Sessions to investigate a long list of perceived political enemies
Date: Aug. 23, 2018
9. The Durham investigation: Directed at law enforcement and intelligence officials, as well as Hillary Clinton
Date: April 18, 2019 to May 2023
10. Trump urges Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to open a criminal investigation of Joe Biden
Date: July 25, 2019
11. Criminal investigations of Comey
First Date: uncertain — August 2019
Second Date: From at least January 2020 – December 2020/January 2021
12. Trump threatens to prosecute Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger if he doesn’t overturn his election defeat in Georgia
Date: Jan. 2, 2021
Chronology of a Dozen Times Trump Pushed to Prosecute His Perceived Enemies
12 specific instances in which Trump used DOJ to go after his chosen political targets. Some cases succeeding more than might be imagined or remembered.
www.justsecurity.org
