Trump’s Yearning to Prosecute His Political Enemies

The president of the United States reportedly tried to use the full force of the country’s law-enforcement apparatus to prosecute his political enemies and Justice Department veterans are calling it everything from “incredibly” alarming to “flat-out un-American.” The disclosure by The New York Times on Tuesday that President Donald Trump had told the White House counsel he wanted the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey offers a new window into the extent to which Trump perceives the law-enforcement community as his “personal entourage,” said Elliot Williams, a former high-ranking Justice Department official. The council, Don McGahn, who has since left the administration, told Trump he could not order an investigation and produced a memo warning Trump that he could face impeachment for asking law-enforcement to prosecute Clinton and Comey, according to The Times.