Consider these two examples of the President’s actions in the recent past.
Over the past month and a half, Trump has fired several government watchdogs including:
- The Inspector-General of the intelligence community, who handled the whistle-blower complaint on Trump’s meddling in the Ukraine;
- The inspector in the Health and Human Services Office, who criticized the President’s response to COVID-19;
- The chair of a federal panel overseeing the dispensing of the COVID stimulus package; and
- The Inspector-General at the State Department, whose probing into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s involvement in fast-tracking a $7 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia without Congressional approval prompted Pompeo to demand his dismissal.
There seems little point in having watchdogs in the American system of government if they can be leashed/fired at the whim of the President.
The Administration of (in)Justice
There are three branches of government in both the U.S. and Canada – the executive and legislative branches and the judiciary. The courts are supposed to be separate and independent to enforce the rule of law, thereby ensuring that governments only act if they have specific authority and follow appropriate procedural safeguards when doing so.
Here again, developments in the U.S. make a mockery of the rule of law and the administration of justice.
The Trump Administration continues to undermine and discredit the Mueller investigations and report dealing with Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election in 2016. In February, the Justice Department overruled its own prosecutors in the case of Roger Stone (who had been indicted as part of the Mueller investigations) and recommended a lower sentence than the prosecutors had. All four lawyers on that case immediately disassociated themselves from the prosecution and one resigned from the Justice Department. In contrast, Trump expressed great sympathy for Stone’s plight.
Former national security advisor Michael Flynn had pled guilty in two separate hearings dealing with his involvement with the Russians and their activities in connection with the 2016 election. He recently changed his mind, claiming that the FBI had tricked him. In response, Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department announced it would no longer prosecute the case, having determined that even if Flynn lied to FBI agents in early 2017, his lies were not “material” to any investigation. This turn of events prompted a tweet from Trump about this being a “big day for Justice in America.”
From COVID-19 to ERODED-20
It is disheartening to see the continued support for Trump by coopted, complicit, contemptible Republicans who choose blind loyalty over concern for their democracy. Do they not understand that abuses of power by Trump can be duplicated by a future President not of their party, or liking? Americans, and especially Republicans, talk a lot about how much they value freedom. If they really want to have freedom, it is time they woke up to the dictatorial actions of the current President – and stopped them!