A closeness between Donald Trump and the Department of Justice has broken down a White House tradition that has lasted for years, a political analyst claimed.
Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told US Attorney General Pam Bondi that she was responsible for turning the DoJ into "Trump's instrument of revenge". Raskin added, "Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza, and you deliver every time."
This sentiment has since been shared by CNN analyst Stephen Collinson, who believes the continued targeting of Democratic lawmakers shows a worrying change in how the DoJ and the Trump administration conduct their business.
Collinson wrote, "The attempted indictments of the six Democratic lawmakers also raise a darker possibility — that Trump’s second-term prosecutors prefer to present hopeless cases than disappoint a president who demands retribution.
"Had they succeeded, it would have sent a message not only that members of Congress can be silenced by a president — but that ordinary citizens would be even more defenseless.
"Bondi, however, argued on Wednesday that the department had been weaponized against Trump by the Biden administration, referring to cases it pursued charging Trump with 2021 election meddling and with keeping classified documents at his Florida home, and possibly to the Russia investigation in the president’s first term."
Collinson also suggested the Department of Justice had been reshaped to match Trump's vision of justice, and that those leading the department had done all they could to appease Trump.
He wrote, "But this is a White House that doesn’t try to hide its contempt for Congress and its oversight role. It disdains any form of dissent. And it has reshaped the justice system to accommodate Trump’s demands, shattering the wall that has traditionally been intended to exist between the DOJ and the Oval Office."
