Donald Ayer: DOJ takeover of Trump’s defense
Note: this piece was originally published in the Washington Post, and features quotes from Checks & Balances member Donald Ayer.
Trump and Barr are counting on this abuse of power to be tossed into this yellowing, bulging folder and dismissed. But a Justice Department that can arbitrarily protect a president can just as arbitrarily turn its investigatory and prosecutorial powers against the president’s political opponents.
“I think a lot of us are extremely alarmed, frankly, at the threat of autocracy,” Donald B. Ayer, a former deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, told Politico last month. Ayer, part of a group of Republican Justice Department appointees who endorsed former vice president Joe Biden, added of Trump: “He’s going to be unleashed if he gets a second term. I don’t know what’s going to stop him.”
Which is why voters need to resist becoming numb to forms of corruption that not only violate the norms of good government but also threaten to undermine equal justice and democratic rule. They are the only ones who can stop Trump.
Read the full piece at the Washington Post.