Donald Trump has appointed a noteworthy coterie of convicted and accused criminals to serve in his second presidency in what a pair of experts warned was an alarming signal about his intentions.
The former president has himself been indicted in four cases, convicted in one and penalized in several civil lawsuits. Political scientists Austin Sarat and Tom Dumm wrote a column for Salon stating the significance of Trump adding others who've served prison terms or been accused of crimes to serve in the government.
"There is, of course, nothing wrong with giving people second chances after they have paid their debt to society," the pair wrote. "But everyone Trump has nominated or appointed thinks they owe no debt to society. Each of them contends or is portrayed by Trump’s transition team as a victim of a political prosecution or a left-wing smear campaign."
He's asked former trade adviser Peter Navarro to return to the White House after serving a prison sentence for contempt of Congress, and will send his son-in-law's father Charles Kushner as his ambassador to France despite his own criminal convictions. He's tapped former Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary in spite of troubling allegations of misconduct, while former Rep. Matt Gaetz had to withdraw as attorney general nominee over his own alleged wrongdoing.
"Before discussing Trump’s rogues gallery and the jailhouse-to-White House pipeline, we want to explain why it matters and what it means for America’s democratic future," Sarat and Dunn wrote. "Much of the commentary on Trump’s appointments has focused on questions of their competence or what it would mean for the jobs they are being asked to do or the agencies they are being asked to lead."
"We want to call attention to the messages it sends to Americans, how it coarsens our civic life, encourages cynicism, and prepares the way for Trump’s distinctive brand of strong man rule," they added.
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Trump and his MAGA allies insist the criminal prosecutions against the former president were politically motivated, although the indictments were handed up by grand juries.
"There is no better way to construct a criminal state than to appoint criminals and 'ne-er do wells' to positions of power and to pretend that they are something else," Sarat and Dumm wrote. "And most importantly, there is no better way to undermine democracy and the rule of law than by making criminals our political leaders."
"The criminal state eliminates one of the final barriers to absolute rule," they added. "It prepares the citizenry to accept anything from the government and turns it into a passive and lonely mass, and fearful of the consequences of stepping out of line. In the end, the promotion of criminals to places of power is a feature, not a bug, in Trump’s appointment strategy and one important step toward ending American democracy."