Stop the abuses, Congress
The good news is that Attorney General William Barr is getting pushback in his effort to turn the U.S. Department of Justice into the dirty legal tricks division of President Donald Trump’s campaign. The bad news is that if their recent behavior is any indication, this will make not one shred of difference to Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr.
Lagging in the polls nationally and in enough swing states to put his reelection in doubt, Mr. Trump is testing how far he can go in abusing power to manipulate the election. So far, he has declared the election invalid if he loses, tampered with the U.S. Postal Service as it braces for a flood of absentee ballots, pushed a Supreme Court nominee for the stated purpose of having a decisive majority in place to rule on election cases, called on supporters to illegally stalk voters at the polls, told an armed right-wing group to “stand by,” and threatened to use the military against demonstrators opposed to him.
As if all that long train of abuses is not alarming enough, Mr. Trump now
To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com publicly taunts Mr. Barr to prosecute his political enemies, including his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. Nothing we have seen from Mr. Barr convinces us that he won’t bow to Mr. Trump’s will.
Indeed, Mr. Barr has long talked and acted more like a political operative than an attorney general. He has interfered in cases involving political allies of the president. He has traveled the world looking for dirt on Mr. Biden. He has argued that the Justice Department can defend Mr. Trump in personal lawsuits and scoffed at the idea of the Justice Department being politically neutral, declaring last month that it is “not a praetorian guard that watches over society impervious to the ebbs and flows of politics.” And in August, the department issued a memo loosening restrictions on politically sensitive investigations during the election.
What is a nation to do when the government’s own legal and criminal watchdog has become the president’s personal political attack dog ?
Certainly it’s encouraging that citizen, legal and other groups are mobilizing to challenge voter intimidation and other interference in the election
— a show by the people that they will not take these abuses lightly. But such a grass-roots legalistic approach against open abuses of power invites even harsher measures from a president who has already shown a willingness to use the power of government against his opponents.
America needs Congress to stand up for democracy by making it clear that it is prepared to impeach at least Mr. Barr, if not the president, too. What higher high crime is there — in the view of the nation’s founders, and citizens today — than the abuse of power to thwart the democratic process and persecute political opponents?
And the House should be ready to act with all due speed. The courts, as Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr know, are slow and can be slowed even more. Mr. Trump has made it clear that he expects his packed Supreme Court to do his bidding. The only other constitutional check is impeachment.
If that sounds excessive, consider the alternative Mr. Trump himself has all but spelled out: He and Mr. Barr cheat, intimidate, and indict their way to not just an Electoral College victory but an even tighter grip on power. What, after all, has an openly corrupt president to fear from a legislature that would not stop him?