Donald Trump's new plan to strong-arm the Justice Department goes well beyond what any president in modern history has ever done, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig warned CNN's Pamela Brown on Friday.
According to new reports, Trump plans to fire career prosecutors who worked under outgoing special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the two federal criminal cases against him. This comes as Trump, who in his previous term reportedly even wanted to use the Justice Department to target comedians who made fun of him, nominates a close ally, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, to head up that very department.
"How big of a deal is this, that Trump wants to totally overhaul the DOJ and get rid of the team, Jack Smith's team that investigated him?" asked Brown.
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"Well, Pam, this is a red line that presidents going back through modern history have respected and have not crossed," said Honig. "And here's what I mean. Presidents unquestionably have power and authority to hire and fire political appointees. The attorney general, the deputy attorney general, the 93 U.S. attorneys. Donald Trump, during his first term, did fire Jeff Sessions essentially, and two U.S. attorneys. However, the line that sounds like it would be crossed here, if this reporting plays out, is the firing of nonpolitical career prosecutors, law enforcement agents, staff who were on Jack Smith's team."
"Those people — I used to be one of them," he continued. "That is 99 percent of the Justice Department's workforce. Those people are nonpolitical. They are career prosecutors. They are career law enforcement officers. They are there in a nonpartisan capacity. And what we've not seen before, and why this would be fundamentally different, is because now we're looking at a president ordering the firing of those career prosecutors."
"Again, even Donald Trump himself, during his first four years, did not cross that line," Honig added. "But if this is how it plays out, then we're in new territory."
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