There is no sugarcoating this result. Yes, the election is a year away; yes, circumstances can change and minds can focus, perhaps if Trump is convicted. But recall: This same poll four years ago bolstered the argument that Biden was the most electable among the Democratic contenders.
Now, Biden is imperiled. Young voters in these states back Biden over Trump by a single percentage point. His support among Black and Hispanic voters, the backbone of the Democratic coalition, has withered. As Democratic strategist Dan Pfeiffer noted, “numbers like these are broadly consistent with the trendlines in recent polls.” Given the razor-thin closeness of the 2020 election, this is a hair-on-fire situation.
Especially because of the second story. “Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice Department control in a second term,” report The Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Devlin Barrett.
As they detail, Trump and allies “have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.”
The Post reporters identify those targeted by Trump for investigation: his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, former attorney general William P. Barr, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, and ex-Trump attorney Ty Cobb, along with FBI and other Justice Department officials.
This would be unbelievable except that it isn’t. Trump himself has announced his intentions to do just this, in what he considers a justified tit-for-tat retaliation for supposed Biden-directed targeting of Trump. “This is third-world-country stuff, ‘arrest your opponent,’” Trump told New Hampshire voters last month. “And that means I can do that, too.”
The irony here is that Trump is claiming the power to do precisely what his lawyers now are in court complaining — without evidence — has been illegally done to him. In a motion to dismiss the case for “selective and vindictive prosecution,” they have asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss charges against Trump, claiming that “Joe Biden pressured DOJ to pursue the nakedly political indictment in this case.” Of course, selective and vindictive prosecution is precisely what Trump and his allies are now plotting.
What stopped Trump last time were his own lawyers, especially in the White House and Justice Department. Even those who acquiesced to some of his efforts to misuse the levers of government for his personal benefit had lines they would not cross, including, most notably, Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results. Trump understands this and has drawn the logical conclusion: to ensure more compliant lawyers are in place the next time around.
“The lesson the former president learned from his first term is don’t put guys like me … in those jobs,” Kelly told The Post. “The lesson he learned was to find sycophants.”
Indeed, the Sycophants Wanted sign is already out. As the New York Times reported last week, lists of those “ideologically and temperamentally suited to serve in a second Trump administration” are already being compiled by Trump allies.
For this crowd, membership in the conservative Federalist Society is no longer a sufficient credential — it might even be a suspect one. “The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” Russell T. Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, told the Times. Vought “argued that many elite conservative lawyers had proved to be too timid when, in his view, the survival of the nation is at stake,” the Times said.
Well, agreed on the latter point. A hallmark of democracy is separating law enforcement and politics. “Making prosecutorial decisions in a nonpartisan manner is essential to democracy,” Trump’s former deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, told The Post. “The White House should not be meddling in individual cases for political reasons.”
Could anything stop Trump if he were reelected, assuming that a second-term Trump would be cannier about bending the federal government to his will?
The military offers one point of hope, albeit a narrow one. One of the more troubling plans of the Trump crew involves its willingness to deploy the Insurrection Act, which empowers the president to use the military domestically “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”
This statute is a particular favorite of Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department official who tried to help Trump overturn the election results. According to a federal indictment of Trump, when a White House lawyer warned of “riots in every major city in America” if Trump sought to remain in office, Clark, identified only as Co-Conspirator 4, replied, “That’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”
Still, military officers have the right and duty to refuse to obey unlawful orders. This covers “patently illegal” orders and ones that “a person of ordinary sense and understanding” would know to be unlawful. It’s hard to know what might happen if a newly elected President Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress domestic protests.
Then there are federal judges. They could refuse to countenance — they could even intervene to halt — politically motivated prosecutions. But that is a tough hurdle. It requires judges with the backbone to stand up to Trump — something many have demonstrated — but also clear proof of political meddling and prosecutorial misconduct.
All of which is to say: The Federalist Society might or might not know what time it is, but I do. It is time to be very, very afraid.
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