Would the Justice Department and FBI officials pursue Trump charges against his rivals? – NBC New York

Since entering the 2024 race, Donald Trump has been doing just that called for the initiation of criminal proceedings at least 16 rival politicians and 15 law enforcement, military and intelligence officials, according to an NBC News review of his public comments – not to mention employees of two federal public health agencies, two tech billionaires, Google, and lawyers, campaign donors and political activists who engage in what the former president called “unscrupulous behavior” during the election.

Separate recent review by National Public Radio found that Trump had threatened prosecution more than 100 times.

But could Trump actually carry out impeachments of such unprecedented scope? And if so, how would it work?

To understand how this might play out, NBC News interviewed a number of current and former Justice Department and FBI officials, as well as legal experts.

Everyone agreed that what Trump was proposing would upend 50 years of post-Watergate norms that federal prosecutors disobey the president’s orders on criminal investigations. These rules were intended to prevent a repeat of the abuses of Richard Nixon, who misused the Justice Department to punish his political enemies.

But current and former officials say there are ways around the barriers that could allow Trump to turn the department into an instrument of revenge against his political opponents.

“A corrupt U.S. attorney working with one corrupt prosecutor can do enormous damage,” said Joyce Vance, a U.S. attorney in Alabama and an NBC News legal analyst.

The new president will appoint about 300 senior Justice Department officials, including U.S. attorneys who run offices across the country. All 300 must be confirmed by the Senate, but many former Justice Department officials have expressed concern that Trump will install partisans willing to do his bidding.

Usually American lawyers rely on lower-level career prosecutors who perform critical investigative work behind the scenes. It can’t be easy for them released in accordance with applicable guidelines. However, those who resist participating in investigations will face enormous pressure. Some may opt out.

In situations where there was resistance, Trump could have appointed a special counsel to pursue the criminal prosecutions he seeks.

“I’m concerned that good people will resign,” said Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor and NBC News legal analyst. “Who are they replacing them with? People who obey illegal orders.

One of Trump’s more far-reaching proposals, known as Schedule F, calls for reclassifying about 50,000 career civil servants across the federal government so that Trump and his inner circle can hire, promote and fire them.

Officials and experts say that even if Trump does not take such a drastic step, the likely result of the upheaval will be an even more extreme version of the chaos, division and protracted legal battles that characterized his first term. It would slow down the work of the Justice Department, which conducts criminal investigations across the country and oversees the FBI; Drug Enforcement Agency; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; all federal prisons; and many other federal law enforcement agencies.

“This is a recipe for shutting down all of the undoubtedly essential national security work that the Department of Justice and the FBI need to do,” warned a former Justice Department official who asked not to be identified, citing fear of retaliation.

A former U.S. lawyer who asked not to be named added that a version of this chaos is already unfolding within the Trump transition team, with hard-line Trump supporters calling for unprecedented use of the Justice Department and the FBI, and mainstream Republicans opposing such a solution. steps.

“As part of Trump’s transition planning,” said the former US lawyer, “there is a battle between the norms and the weirdos.”

A central focus of the second Trump administration

Both Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, say the Justice Department will be a major focus of a second Trump administration. Campaigning in Georgia on Oct. 11, Vance said the attorney general position would be more important than his own role as vice president.

“I think the most important person in the government after the president this term will be the attorney general,” said Vance, who said the current Justice Department is “the most corrupt” in U.S. history and said Trump would have a “clean house” there.

Current and former Justice Department officials have strongly rejected Vance’s corruption claims, citing Biden’s Justice Department accusations against prominent Democrats including Hunter Biden, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and New York Mayor Eric Adams. Democrats have expressed their belief that Trump will seek to appoint an attorney general who will drop federal cases against him over his alleged role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol and mishandling of classified documents – brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

The initial list of a dozen people Trump could nominate for attorney general included U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, The case was recently reported by ABC News. Cannon dismissed a case against Trump related to secret documents, a move that was sharply criticized by legal experts and praised by Trump. He called Cannon a “brilliant woman” and dismissed the allegations as a “fraud case.”

The next name on the list of potential attorneys general was Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level Justice Department official who supported Trump’s false claims of 2020 voter fraud. Days before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Trump’s attempt to nominate Clark as acting attorney general failed when the entire senior leadership team at the Justice Department threatened to resign, citing concerns that public confidence in the department’s neutrality would be irreparably damaged.

Another option that Trump’s tougher legal advisers have discussed is to appoint a series of acting attorneys general who would not need Senate confirmation. In accordance with applicable federal lawthe acting prosecutor general may hold this position for 210 days at a time.

said Mike Davis, a Republican lawyer and former senior Senate staffer in appearance on conservative influencer Benny Johnson’s show that as Trump’s acting attorney general, he will hold a “three-week reign of terror” and then be pardoned by him, “Polityka” reports..

Davis vowed to impeach Joe Biden and pardon the January 6 defendants…especially my hero, the cuckold” — fire “deep state” workers, detain people in the “DC Gulag,” and begin deporting millions of immigrants and putting “children in cages.”

Trump has publicly praised Davis. At a rally this month he greeted Davis as “tough as hell” and stated that “we want him in a very high position” in the second administration.

A small number of loyalists are needed

Vance, a former U.S. attorney in Alabama, said it wouldn’t be difficult for Trump to find 93 people — whose only qualification would be loyalty to him — who could serve as U.S. attorneys or top federal prosecutors in states across the country.

“You can bring them in from outside — they don’t have to live in the county or the state,” Vance said. “Trump could easily appoint his most loyal and most malleable people.”

She added that placing allies in top positions at the Justice Department would be enough for Trump to carry out his impeachment. “You don’t have to corrupt the entire office to bring impeachment,” she said. “Just hire three or four people, find people in the FBI, Secret Service who want to play ball.”

Stephen Gillers, a professor of legal ethics at New York University School of Law, said that “I’m sorry to say” but there is “no doubt” that Trump will be able to find lawyers at the Justice Department willing to comply with his wishes.

Gillers praised the bar associations for disbarring several lawyers involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, such as Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, for testifying falsely in court. However, he believes this would not be a sufficient deterrent.

“You’re dealing with 1.3 million American lawyers,” Gillers said. “He will undoubtedly find 1,000 people who will support his goals and strive to achieve them.”

Gillers argued that the Department of Justice differs from other federal agencies in its role in instilling confidence that the American legal system is fair.

“The administration of justice is different from the administration of agriculture,” he said. “Lawmaking should not be corrupted by politics.”

Gillers sharply criticized the Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling, which said any presidential actions involving the Justice Department are “completely immune” from criminal prosecution. He said that for the first time in American history, a president can order the attorney general to prosecute his political enemies without fear of being criminally liable for abuse of power.

“The opinion is arrogant at the expense of the constitution,” Gillers said. “These five people have rewritten the meaning of the separation of powers in a democratic system, which is disgusting.”

Trump would also have the power to appoint a special counsel who could theoretically investigate alleged corruption across the country, legal experts say.

Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, noted that if the prosecution’s evidence were extremely weak, a jury could acquit the defendant regardless of jurisdiction.

Somin argued that a federal prosecution, even if it results in an acquittal, could drag on for years and seriously harm a person’s professional reputation and ability to find a job.

“For many people, just being charged and prosecuted is a significant burden,” he said.

Justice Department officials have risen to the occasion and resisted the president’s past undue pressure. During the Watergate scandal, the attorney general and his deputy resigned when Nixon asked them to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox over the so-called “Saturday Night Massacre”.

And the Clark election denial episode, in which a group of senior Justice Department officials — made up entirely of Republicans — blocked his nomination as acting attorney general by threatening to resign, offers some hope for veterans of the department.

But former Justice Department and FBI officials said it’s hard to imagine that U.S. law enforcement won’t be seriously hampered by what’s likely to come after a second Trump administration.

“Let’s assume you know the numbers. You come in and you just kill off a significant portion of the workforce,” said a former Justice Department official. “I don’t care who you put in charge – it’s not a functioning institution anymore.”

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