The move incensed Democratic lawmakers and raised new questions about potential White House interference at the agency.
“Left to his own devices, President Trump would turn America into a banana republic, where the dictator can do whatever he wants and the Justice Department is the president’s law firm — not a defender of the rule of law,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday on the Senate floor in response.
Many lawmakers called the shocking development just the latest in a series of assaults on the rule of law during Trump’s presidency. For many, the Stone controversy appeared to be a tipping point for the politicization of the top federal law enforcement agency under Trump and what they fear is an unprecedented expansion of presidential powers. Continue reading.