This public pressure campaign to punish his enemies does not happen in a vacuum.
First, Donald Trump fired a U.S. Attorney in Virginia. And Trump was explicit about why he was firing him.
It was because this U.S. Attorney resisted efforts by Trump and his Department of Justice to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James with the crimes that Trump already said she was “guilty” of, but for which there was no evidence. The implication is clear: if prosecutors don’t go after me and the president’s other enemies with meritless cases, they too will be fired.
This is the biggest attack on the rule of law and independent justice since Watergate.
After Nixon’s abuses of the Justice Department during Watergate, a wall was erected between the White House and Department of Justice to try and prevent a president from surreptitiously ordering the prosecution of his enemies.
Now the wall is obliterated — and all of the corruption and weaponization is out in the open.