The ex-president's intense urge for payback has quickly transformed into a structured framework. Within the twelve months, the chief executive's rage and whims have adopted the shape of government actions in a manner reminiscent to historical authoritarian regimes. Justice department personnel who resist his demands are promptly dismissed and replaced by loyalists. Critical officials who confront him encounter prosecution, judicial process and penalties. Opponents have been labeled under administration orders as “unpatriotic”, “opposed to religious values” and “opposing economic freedom”, and threatened with legal action as “security threats”.
The Justice System Restructured
Every case involving legal action of critics and leniency for supporters exhibits its own unique features. But, despite their individual form, they embody examples of what has developed as a calculated method. Such incidents are far from coincidental. The administration's removal of Department of Justice lawyers and Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel, accompanied by his appointment of loyalists in high-level roles, began rapidly, quickly assumed a consistency, and has now been molded into a structure. DoJ and the law enforcement agency have been transformed into partisan bodies under the president's clear orders to carry out his directives. Wrongdoing has been made standard. This is the retribution system.
Administration is more concerned with penalizing the chief's supposed adversaries than they are with defending our national security.
Within the Structure
The foundation of this framework has been exposed in the lawsuit of three former top law enforcement executives lodged in late summer in the federal court in Washington against agency head Kash Patel and attorney general Pam Bondi for wrongful dismissal in “a campaign of retribution against the officials for what the accused considered to be a refusal to exhibit sufficient allegiance”. According to the filing that Brian Driscoll, the former temporary head, describes a exchange in which he “openly acknowledged the unlawfulness of his behavior”.
The official had attempted to protect agency personnel from being dismissed, the lawsuit states. Patel advised him that “White House figures” – perceived by the official to be the executive branch and justice department – had instructed him to fire anyone who they considered as having participated in a law enforcement case against him. The filing goes on: “Patel explained that he had to dismiss the individuals his leaders told him to fire, because his capacity to hold his own position was contingent on the dismissal of the agents who worked on matters involving the chief executive. The director explained that there was no way he or Driscoll could do to prevent these or any other firings, because ‘the agency sought to place the leader in prison and he remembers.’” When Driscoll advised the director he was breaking the FBI's own policies, the director reportedly said “he understood that and he knew the essence of the summary firings were almost certainly illegal”.
Widespread Consequences
Since the director's claimed admission to him, the justice department and the Federal Bureau have been weakened and repurposed for Trump's revenge apparatus. Six of the bureau's senior executives were terminated or pushed out in the early weeks of the administration. About 4,500 professional attorneys at DoJ have taken a “voluntary departure plan”. No fewer than seven DoJ lawyers, including those in the southern district of New York, quit in dissent over what they considered as ideological pressure in abandoning the legal action against the city leader, a political figure, in as a trade for his collaboration with the administration's ICE roundups of migrants. The ethics division of the department, which oversees ethical violations, has been cut down to two attorneys. The civil rights division has been devastated: 70% of its employees has resigned. A third of senior leaders at DoJ have left. The division implementing conservation statutes has seen departures of 50% its leadership.
Rewards and Sanctions
In the mayor's situation, the temporary lawyer for the NY office, the official, resigned in protest against what she described as the “trade-off”. Tom Homan, the president's “immigration leader,” was present as the implementer with the mayor on a media outlet to announce: “Unless he complies, I will return in NYC.”. Meanwhile, another figure, earlier the acting deputy attorney general and a ex-lawyer, who arranged the agreement, was granted an appellate federal judgeship, a potential springboard to the supreme court.
The president's immunity for offenses perpetrated while in power, awarded by the remarkable ruling of the GOP-led on the judicial body, thus blocking his prosecution over the political violence and maintaining his political viability for the presidential race, is the basis on which he relies to defend his stalwarts. Under these circumstances, he has been freed to authorize misconduct. The impact of the supreme court decision permeates his administration and the GOP thoroughly. The legal case has metastasized. Similar to the former president's administration lawyer John Dean said about the Watergate
