Unabashed abuse of prosecutorial power is a major reason for the president’s deep unpopularity.
I’ve noted a number of times that President Trump’s lawfare jihad against Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was doubly self-destructive. First, it impeded the confirmation of Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee to replace Powell as chairman. Second, the baseless implication that Powell was corrupt would probably convince him to remain on the Federal Reserve Board until the end of his term, in January 2028, rather than allow Trump to replace him while Republicans still firmly controlled the Senate — i.e., while the president could reasonably expect to confirm a nominee sympathetic to his desire for low interest rates despite persistent inflation.
On Wednesday, we saw the inevitable outcome.
Warsh was approved out of committee on a party-line vote only because (as previously detailed here) the Trump Justice Department finally dropped the criminal probe it had rationalized on the groundless claim that Powell had given perjurious congressional testimony.
Subsequently, Powell announced that he would remain on the Fed Board for the foreseeable future. As the New York Times reports:
“After my term as chair ends on May 15, I will continue to serve as a governor for a period of time to be determined,” Mr. Powell said at a news conference on Wednesday.
He pointed to the legal attacks on the Fed as the reason for his decision.
“I worry that these attacks are battering the institution and putting at risk the thing that really matters to the public, which is the ability to conduct monetary policy without taking into consideration political factors,” Mr. Powell said. He added: “I plan to keep a low profile as a governor.”
President Trump wanted Powell out and wanted to fill two Fed slots with his preferred nominees while Senate conditions were still favorable. Instead, he barely got Warsh through, only after he dropped the Powell probe; in the interim, Powell decided to stay on until after Democrats either narrow their Senate deficit or take over the chamber, and can thus exercise material influence over Powell’s replacement. While it is customary for chairmen to leave the Fed entirely once their time at the helm has elapsed, Powell calculates, quite rationally, that the vindictive president could restart the criminal probe if he surrenders the leverage of his voting power on the Board.
Donald Trump is president, in large part, because the public was disturbed by Democratic lawfare against him. Of course, even as Democrats practiced lawfare, they pretended not be acting on political animus — just on evidence and “the rule of law”; they indignantly insisted that such abuses of power were beneath them. By contrast, Trump makes little or no effort to conceal the delight he takes in putting his enemies through the lawfare wringer and in being seen as doing so. When challenged about it, he is more apt to counter “look at what they did to me,” than to offer much of a defense (see, e.g., his laughable claim this week, in defense of the latest Comey indictment, that the former FBI director had to know “’86’ is a mob term for kill him”).
There are many reasons why Trump’s presidency is deeply unpopular and self-sabotaging. A big one, though, is that the broad public is bothered by politicized law enforcement. Instead of being the president who vanquished it, he has normalized it.