You’re goddamn right he did
Trump has taken to saying that he never asked to prosecute his enemies because it wouldn’t have been right. he even says about Hillary Clinton that he didn’t think it would be right to put the wife of a president in jail (as if that’s all she was….) He is, as usual, lying through his big, white, fake teeth.
The fact is that Trump repeatedly ordered his DOJ to prosecute his enemies. His minions managed to keep- him from doing his worst. Here’s how this story by Mike Schmidt in the NY Times starts out (gift link below.)
It was the spring of 2018 and President Donald J. Trump, faced with an accelerating inquiry into his campaign’s ties to Russia, was furious that the Justice Department was reluctant to strike back at those he saw as his enemies.
In an Oval Office meeting, Mr. Trump told startled aides that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions would not order the department to go after Hillary Clinton and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump would prosecute them himself.
Recognizing the extraordinary dangers of a president seeking not just to weaponize the criminal justice system for political ends but trying as well to assume personal control over who should be investigated and charged, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, sought to stall.
“How about I do this?” Mr. McGahn told Mr. Trump, according to an account verified by witnesses. “I’m going to write you a memo explaining to you what the law is and how it works, and I’ll give that memo to you and you can decide what you want to do.”’
The episode marked the start of a more aggressive effort by Mr. Trump to deploy his power against his perceived enemies despite warnings not to do so by top aides. And a look back at the cases of 10 individuals brings a pattern into clearer focus: After Mr. Trump made repeated public or private demands for them to be targeted by the government, they faced federal pressure of one kind or another.
it highlights how closely his expressed desires to go after people who had drawn his ire were sometimes followed by the Justice Department, F.B.I. or other agencies. Even without his direct order, his indirect influence could serve his ends and leave those in his sights facing expensive, time-consuming legal proceedings or other high-stress inquiries.
The story of that period has a powerful resonance today as Mr. Trump, angered in part by the two federal and two state-level indictments of him since leaving office, threatens to carry out a campaign of retribution if he returns to the White House. He has signaled that a second Trump administration would be stocked not with people who served as guardrails during his first term, but with carefully vetted loyalists who would eagerly carry out his wishes.
And there’s this:
If elected again, he would also return to the White House bolstered by the Supreme Court’s ruling in July that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution for official acts taken while in office.
Schmidt apparently had access to memos memorializing Trump’s orders and discussions among the staff as to their legality which members of the Trump administration snuck out of the White House. (Trump directed that people in the WH not take notes.) Both privately and publicly Trump was intent upon having the DOJ punish his enemies despite the constant admonishment by WH lawyers that it would cause havoc. And apparently, some of the lawyers who were very much against what he was trying to do, nonetheless reluctantly concluded that he could legally do it even though it would violate long established normas and result in mass resignations at the DOJ.
Schmidt doesn’t really go into what Bill Barr did personally, but we all know that he was almost as anxious to stick it to Trump’s enemies and the man himself.
Joe Biden has not ordered the DOJ to go after Trump. In fact, he’s stood silent as they prosecuted his beloved only surviving son on charges that would not have been brought against anyone else. So, even though Trump has been charged with federal crimes since he left office, the charges were fully justified — he tried to overturn the election and stole classified documents. — he cannot use Biden as an excuse to throw his enemies in jail if he becomes president again.
This article is thorough and includes a lot of detail about some of the episodes we had heard about earlier as well as some startling news facts. I’ve included a gift link here for you to read the whole thing.
Now that he knows he has immunity and will not have to seek another term (whether he leaves voluntarily or just decides he’s going to stay as long as he wants) all bets are off. He’s going to do it.