Trump’s Unparalleled War on a Pillar of Society: Law Enforcement
“It’s one thing for the president to criticize political appointees — although it is quite odd for him to criticize his own political appointees,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a lawyer who left the Justice Department’s national security division in April
and now teaches at the University of Minnesota law school.
“Until recently, people in the department were in raised eyebrow mode,” said Sharon McGowan, a former principal deputy chief of the
appellate section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department who left soon after the new administration took over.
They said the memo, drafted by Republicans led by Representative Devin Nunes of California, the Intelligence Committee chairman,
and declassified by Mr. Trump, raised serious and legitimate questions about the way the F. B.I.
With a special counsel investigating whether his campaign collaborated with Russia in 2016
and whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice in 2017, the president has engaged in a scorched-earth assault on the pillars of the criminal justice system in a way that no other occupant of the White House has done.
