President Trump Steps Up His Revenge Agenda - Rob Horowitz

President Trump Steps Up His Revenge Agenda - Rob Horowitz

Continuing to bulldoze his way through the post-Watergate norms and procedures designed to keep the president’s “personal and political interests” from unduly influencing decisions on individual criminal and civil matters, President Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate two officials from his first term on Friday. He did so without offering a better reason than they said and did things he didn’t like.

President Trump’s orders targeted Chris Krebs, a former top cybersecurity official who took the lead in combating cyberthreats to the 2020 election and Miles Taylor, who worked in the Department of Homeland Security and was the famous “Anonymous.” Taylor wrote a widely discussed New York Times opinion piece and a book that were highly critical of President Trump.

In Chris Krebs' case, his unpardonable sin was declaring the 2020 election was the most secure ever, directly contradicting Mr. Trump’s false claims that it was stolen.  Evidently, firing Mr. Krebs after he made that statement more than 4 years ago was not enough retribution for Donald Trump.  In the president’s view, telling the truth if it interferes with his insistence on a blatant falsehood of which  he refuses to let go merits putting someone in the legal crosshairs.

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This naked abuse of power is only the most recent example of President Trump making his apparently unquenchable thirst for revenge a central feature of his second term. This past week, Susman Godfrey-- the law firm that won an $800 million settlement for their client Dominion Voting Systems from Fox news for its false claims that the voting machine company had rigged the 2020 election--became the most recent firm to be barred from government resources or buildings.by executive order. 

 For various supposedly unpardonable sins, ranging from once hiring an attorney who worked on the Mueller investigation, the January 6 committee, or for the Manhattan DA to providing pro bono legal representation for former special prosecutor Jack Smith, President Trump is punishing a growing number of law firms with unprecedented and unconstitutional actions.  “Trump has issued a series of orders meant to punish firms, including by ordering the suspension of lawyers’ security clearances and revoking federal contracts,” AP reported. “He’s succeeded in extracting concessions from some who have settled, but others have challenged the orders in court.”

Susman Godfrey is joining the law firms that are standing up to the president. “The executive order targeting Susman Godfrey is unconstitutional and retaliatory, the firm wrote in a publicly released statement.  “No administration should be allowed to punish lawyers for simply doing their jobs, protecting Americans and their constitutional right to the legal process. But this goes far beyond law firms and lawyers. Today it is our firm under attack, but tomorrow it could be any of us. As officers of the court, we are duty-bound to take on this fight against the illegal executive order.”

President Trump has used other means to target a broader group of political opponents who he believes have been disloyal or otherwise wronged him.  He abruptly removed General Mark Milley, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo’s security protection, for instance, despite the fact that all 3 men were still under threat from Iran, intentionally putting their lives at risk.  The president also had his FCC Chair open investigations into CBS and NPR because he views their coverage as unfair to him.

In his recent New York Times opinion piece, noted conservative former US Appeals Court Judge Michael Luttig reminds us of what’s at stake if President Trump's increasingly authoritarian actions are allowed to stand: 

“Mr. Trump appears to have forgotten that Americans fought the Revolutionary War to secure their independence from the British monarchy and establish a government of laws, not of men, so that Americans would never again be subject to the whims of a tyrannical king. As Thomas Paine wrote in “Common Sense” in 1776, “In America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

Simply put, it's time to fight back.