Trump’s Justice Department Push Raises Old Questions About Interference, Power
President Donald Trump’s latest moves at the Justice Department are creating problems he helped set in motion. By pressing his way into criminal investigatio...
President Donald Trump’s latest moves at the Justice Department are creating problems he helped set in motion. By pressing his way into criminal investigations and pushing for action against enemies, Trump has put his own administration in a bind — and revived a familiar debate over how far a White House should reach into law enforcement.
The fallout has been immediate. According to legal analyst Alan Feuer of The New York Times, Trump’s grip on the department has already threatened one criminal case, set the stage for sanctions in another and complicated Senate confirmation prospects for his pick for attorney general. The same pressure campaign that was meant to give him more control has started to boomerang.
A White House hand on Justice
Feuer said Trump “muscled his way into the driver’s seat” at the Justice Department soon after returning to office, leaving clear marks on its traditional independence from the White House. Trump has demanded, and at times directed, investigations into people he views as enemies. The result, Feuer wrote, is a department that has been pulled off course by the president’s own steering.
The latest troubles surfaced over the past week. The exact legal fights have not fully played out, but the consequences already point in the same direction: a criminal case in jeopardy, possible sanctions in another, and a political headache for Trump’s team in the Senate. That is a steep price for a tactic aimed at tightening control.
Trump and the interference argument
The irony is hard to miss. Trump has spent years talking about foreign election interference and voting vulnerabilities, a subject that has become central to his politics. After Russia’s efforts to help elect him were exposed in the 2016 presidential race, he joined a bipartisan drive to strengthen confidence in American democracy.
In 2018, Trump issued an executive order telling U.S. spy agencies to assess covert foreign efforts after each federal election. The following year, he signed legislation putting that requirement into law. Under that law, the director of National Intelligence must send a classified assessment to Congress and release a public version within 60 days “to the greatest extent possible consistent with the protection of sources and methods.”
Those public reports have produced some striking findings. A declassified assessment after the 2022 midterm elections said China had “tacitly approved” efforts to sway a handful of races, targeting both Democrats and Republicans. One online campaign covertly denigrated a named U.S. senator using inauthentic accounts. The senator was almost certainly Marco Rubio, now secretary of state.
Trump has kept returning to claims of voting vulnerabilities, China meddling and fraud, and the issue has also fed tensions with Beijing. On July 17, The Washington Post reported that Trump was testing China relations with election-meddling claims. Another report from ABC News said Trump had pointed to documents on voting vulnerabilities, China meddling and fraud ahead of a speech. The politics are familiar. The blowback is new. And it is hitting from the Justice Department out.
