As former President Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts with four trials scheduled for 2024, concerns are mounting over his increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian-style attacks on prosecutors, posing a potential threat to the rule of law, according to former justice department officials.
Trump’s vitriolic assaults on a special counsel and two state prosecutors, coupled with attacks on certain judges, claim, in part, that the charges against him amount to “election interference” as he contemplates a return to the presidency. Additionally, Trump asserts “presidential immunity” protects him from charges related to his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
However, experts argue that Trump’s campaign and social media criticisms of the four sets of criminal charges, echoed by his legal team’s court briefs, are a mix of conspiracy theories and weak legal claims. These attacks are laced with Trump’s narcissism and authoritarian tendencies, seemingly aimed at delaying or quashing the impending trials.
A significant focus of Trump’s animosity is directed at special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged him with four felony counts for election subversion and 40 felony counts for mishandling classified documents at the end of his presidency. Trump’s primary objective in attacking Smith and other prosecutors is speculated to be a delay in his trials until after the 2024 election, enabling a potential self-pardon if he secures a victory.
Similarly, Trump has singled out Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who initiated a racketeering case in Georgia against Trump and 18 others for attempting to overturn Biden’s win. Trump labels her a “rabid partisan.”
Trump’s legal team, right before Christmas, petitioned an appeals court in Washington to dismiss Smith’s subversion indictment, arguing for presidential immunity. In response, Smith and his legal team, in an 82-page brief on December 30, countered that Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results “threaten to undermine democracy” and emphasized that broad immunity claims for actions while in office could “license Presidents to commit crimes to remain in office.”
Former justice department officials dismiss Trump’s rhetoric as diversionary tactics to deflect attention from the serious charges he faces. Ty Cobb, a White House counsel during the Trump years, describes Trump’s claims as formulaic, with delay being his primary strategic objective.
Other officials, including former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer, contend that Trump’s defenses are an attempt to mischaracterize prosecutions holding him accountable for illegal actions. Despite Trump’s escalating rhetoric, legal experts find his arguments to be desperate and incendiary attacks on the legal system.
Critics express alarm at Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, citing his praise for foreign leaders like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Kim Jong-un. Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin views Trump’s attacks on the legal system as conspiratorial, aimed at political immunity.
In conclusion, Trump’s relentless attacks on prosecutors and the legal system are seen by experts as an attempt to undermine accountability and delay legal proceedings, raising concerns about the rule of law.