The Comey indictments and the president’s other persecutions of political enemies are against the public interest.
Forget the passport. And the dollar. And the Kennedy Center. And the battleships. Forget the national park passes, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the gargantuan banners draped across federal buildings, the children’s savings and investment accounts. The proprietary interest of the United States on which President Trump should really be etching his name, graven image, and Sharpie signature is the federal indictment.
Throughout its history, the Justice Department has been given the enormous litigation advantage of bringing its cases in the name of the United States because it was created and is funded by the American people’s representatives to act in the public interest by upholding the Constitution and the laws enacted thereunder.
Yes, the Justice Department is housed in the executive branch because it is the government’s enforcement arm. The president, however, sets only its enforcement priorities: deciding which of the public’s laws are most in need of vindication by resort to the finite resources Congress provides for that purpose. The laws, however, can only legitimately be enforced as written by Congress; what the president would like the laws to say is irrelevant.
The president is not a defense lawyer or a civil plaintiff’s lawyer. He is entrusted with the nation’s most consequential public office upon taking a constitutionally required oath to faithfully execute the laws. Orwellian distortions of statutory text are the purview of private attorneys paid to represent private clients; their job is zealous representation of the client’s interest, not the public’s, and we expect the courts to do the necessary work of rebuffing their extravagant, self-interested claims. By contrast, such distortions comprise an impeachable offense if the president makes a habit of them.
Congress does not underwrite the Justice Department with taxpayer funds to act as the president’s private lawyer — even if the president manages to persuade his party’s slim Senate majority to confirm for top DOJ posts attorneys who have represented the president in private practice, notwithstanding the obvious conflict of interest this creates. (While publicly sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, these lawyers, under professional rules of ethics, continue to owe allegiance to their client, whom the public has elected president. As we’re seeing, these duties can diverge, and they are certain to diverge when the client/president subordinates his public obligations to his private interests.)
The cases the Justice Department has brought against James Comey are not in the public interest. As illustrated by yesterday’s farce, the two-count indictment cum forfeiture filed in the Eastern District of North Carolina, these cases are against the public interest.
The Justice Department is bound to vindicate the Constitution. The new Comey indictment — the absurd allegation that by publicly posting seashells arrayed in an “86 47” message he threatened to kill Trump, the 47th president — would eradicate the people’s First Amendment right to free political expression. The indictment’s patent vindictiveness undermines the people’s Fifth Amendment right to due process of law.
The president and his minions are not faithfully executing the laws. They are shredding the laws.
They shouldn’t be allowed to abuse power this way under the guise of acting on behalf of the United States. The action filed yesterday should be captioned Donald Trump v. James Comey. The lawfare actions similarly filed against Letitia James and the president’s other nemeses should be deemed brought in Trump’s name — perhaps superimposed by those tacky semiquincentennial commemorative renderings of Trump’s visage, festooned by Trump memecoins, sneakers, watches, and, of course, bibles.
Please just leave the United States out of it.