Trump criminal investigations to proceed
His candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024 doesn’t shield him from ongoing probes.
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s early announcement of his third White House bid won’t shield the former president from the criminal investigations he’s facing, leaving him legally and politically exposed as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination.
The Justice Department is pushing ahead with its probes. And federal prosecutors have plenty of time to continue their work even as Trump hits the campaign trail.
“I don’t think the department is going to hesitate as a result of Trump nominating himself and anointing himself as the first candidate in the 2024 election,” said former Justice Department prosecutor Michael Weinstein. “I just think they will see that as him trying to game the system.”
Trump enters the race facing federal investigations into efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and the hoarding of top-secret government documents at his Florida estate — plus a state probe in Georgia. The Mara-Lago investigation has advanced especially swiftly, with prosecutors this month giving a close Trump ally immunity to testify before a grand jury. Justice Department lawyers in that case say they have amassed evidence of potential crimes involving obstruction and the willful retention of national defense information.
It’s not clear whether anyone will be charged or when that might be decided. But former officials say the best way to ensure the outcome is above reproach is to conduct a by-the-book investigation showing no special favor or ill treatment due to Trump’s former high office.
“The public will have the most faith in what you’re doing, and you will get the most successful results, if you treat Donald Trump like any other American,” said Matthew Miller, Justice Department spokesman under former Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.
Current Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland has said of Trump and the Jan. 6 investigation that “no person is above the law.” Asked about a potential Trump candidacy, Garland replied: “We will hold accountable anyone who is criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer — legitimate, lawful transfer — of power from one administration to the next.”
Investigating any elected official or candidate almost always invites political speculation. Justice Department protocol cautions prosecutors against taking overt action in the direct run-up to an election, but that’s not a hard-and-fast rule. And the 2024 presidential contest is two years away.
Still, it’s not easy to investigate a former president or current candidate. That’s especially true in the case of Trump, who spent his presidency assailing his own Justice Department and haranguing attorneys general he had appointed. He has already lambasted the FBI for searching Mar-a-Lago in August, using the episode to raise funds from supporters.
Now, with his candidacy official, he and his supporters will try to reframe the narrative of the investigation as political persecution by a Democratic administration that fears him.
One risk for Democrats is that Trump could galvanize his supporters anew with that argument. On the other hand, the results of last week’s midterm elections suggest he may be more politically vulnerable than many realized.
There is a recent precedent for investigating a presidential candidate. In 2016, the Obama administration’s Justice Department investigated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of State. Despite investigators’ efforts to remain above the fray, the probe became mired in politics.
Then-Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch expressed regret over a chance encounter she had with former President Bill Clinton in the final days of the investigation. Then- FBI Director James Comey was blamed for harming Hillary Clinton’s candidacy with a detailed public explanation of why the bureau was not recommending charges, and for reopening the probe 11 days before the election.
David Laufman, who supervised that investigation for the Justice Department, said there’s a “surreal disconnect” between the political maelstrom that accompanies such freighted investigations and the headsdown mentality of prosecutors determined to do their work.
“Here we were, conducting a criminal investigation with national security undertones in a way that was practically splashed on the front page of every newspaper every fricking day,” he said. “And all we could do was to continue to do what we knew had to be done ... to make judgments about whether it was appropriate to recommend criminal charges.”
He said he believed the investigators working Mara-Lago have been the same way, and praised their professionalism amid public pressure and even concerns about their safety.
In the Clinton case, Comey has said he considered recommending a separate special counsel to direct the investigation, though he ultimately did not. The option of a specially appointed prosecutor who would report to Garland exists here as well, just as the Trumpera Justice Department appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to lead the investigation into potential coordination between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.