The one-time party of "law and order" is now one that believes the president should meddle directly in federal criminal investigations, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
Former President Donald Trump has said, if he’s re-elected, he’ll fire the Department of Justice of staffers he claims targeted him and he'd appoint a special prosecutor” to “go after” President Joe Biden and his family.
The promise of such hands-on control of criminal investigations has put him firmly against the long-established principle that presidents keep out of Justice Department prosecutions.
But he’s not alone. Barely any GOP candidate contacted by the Times refused to support presidential limits on Justice Department interference.
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“Their responses reveal a party that has turned so hard against federal law enforcement that it is no longer widely considered good politics to clearly answer in the negative a question that was once uncontroversial: Do you believe presidents should get involved in the investigations and prosecutions of individuals?” the Times reported.
Trump’s closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has said the reason the DOJ has become so powerful – echoing the GOP refrain of the department’s ‘weaponization” – is precisely because presidents have left it to its own devices.
“I think presidents have bought into this canard that they’re independent, and that’s one of the reasons why they’ve accumulated so much power over the years,” he said. “We will use the lawful authority that we have.”
Trump has blamed his legal problems, including his indictment on 37 federal charges over his retention of classified documents, on the Department of Justice being used to fulfill a political agenda.
Since Watergate, it’s been understood the presidents only get involved in criminal cases in rare cases affecting foreign policy, the Times said.
But Trump has always tried to push back against that – even in his first term, he tried to order the Justice Department to investigate Hillary Clinton, with the former head of the FBI James Comey falling out of favor after telling him he had no authority to do so, the Times reported.
He also demanded that the Justice Department investigate officials involved in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election -- leading to the John Durham investigation.
Longshot presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy echoed Trump’s belief that presidents should be involved in the DOJ, though he said “the president must exercise this judgment with prudence in a manner that respects the rule of law in the country.”
And former Trump Vice President Mike Pence said the president should be able to remove senior law enforcement officials.
“Mike Pence believes that the president of the United States has the ability to hire and fire the attorney general, the F.B.I. director, and other D.O.J. officials — and has, in fact, pledged to do so if elected — but also believes the D.O.J. has a certain level of independence with regard to prosecutorial matters,” his spokesman told the Times.
The only two GOP candidates who said presidents should not direct investigations were those looking to win the anti-Trump vote: Chris Chistie and Asa Hutchinson.
“No president should be meddling in Department of Justice investigations or cases in any way,” Christie told the Times.
And Hutchinson said, “preserving an independent and politically impartial Department of Justice in terms of specific investigations is essential for the rule of law and paramount in rebuilding trust with the American people.”
“Most other candidates running against Mr. Trump landed in what they apparently deemed to be a politically safer space of blending general comments about how justice should be administered impartially with vague accusations that the Biden-era Justice Department had targeted Republicans for political reasons,” the Times said.
