Tag: Trump used the Justice Department to hurt his enemies

Opinion: How Democrats are hoping to unmask the latest Trump-DOJ scandal

Washington Post logo

It had long been expected that the Biden administration might be reluctant to launch a full fumigation of the epic corruption of the Trump years. The refrain that would justify this foot-dragging, many feared, would be the wretched notion that we must look forward, not back.

Yet what we’ve seen has actually defied negative expectations. The Justice Department has taken multiple active steps that are keeping the true scope of former president Donald Trump’s misdeeds buried. While the department has understandable reasons for defending its institutional prerogatives, this lack of transparency simply isn’t tenable.

This week, Democrats made a new move toward opening the books in a key area where the Justice Department has been unduly secretive: the scandal involving the department’s subpoenaing of the phone and communication records of prominent critics of Trump. Continue reading.

Justice Dept. Ends Criminal Inquiry and Lawsuit on John Bolton’s Book

New York Times logo

President Donald J. Trump had pressured the department to use its legal powers to stop his former national security adviser from publishing embarrassing details about him.

The Justice Department closed a criminal investigation into whether a disparaging memoir by President Donald J. Trump’s national security adviser John R. Bolton illegally disclosed classified information and dropped a lawsuit aimed at recouping profits from the book, according to Mr. Bolton and a court document filed on Wednesday.

The agreement ends an effort that began under the Trump administration to silence Mr. Bolton after Mr. Trump waged a campaign pressuring investigators to prosecute him. Dropping the legal action against him is a rebuke by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland of the previous administration’s use of government power to suppress former Trump officials who became critics of Mr. Trump.

“We argued from the outset that neither action was justifiable because they were initiated only as a result of President Trump’s politically motivated order to prevent publication of the ambassador’s book before the 2020 election,” said Mr. Bolton’s lawyer, Charles J. Cooper. Continue reading.