Donald Trump and allies boost calls for Justice Dept. takeover

In the two-and-a-half years since the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, Congress passed a bipartisan law closing loopholes in the complex process of choosing a new president that Donald Trump tried to exploit in his push to stay in office after losing the 2020 election.

Candidates for crucial swing-state election posts who backed Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election all lost their bids in last year’s elections. And, this week, federal prosecutors filed four felony charges against the former president for his role in the scheme to overturn President Joe Biden’s win.

But while those avenues for electoral mischief may be blocked or severely constrained in 2024, the prosecution — along with another federal indictment accusing Trump of mishandling classified information after leaving office — is providing additional urgency among conservatives for a plan to make over the U.S. Department of Justice.

That’s a step democracy advocates warn could mark a new assault on the U.S. system should Trump win the presidency a second time.

“The incentives for him to move in that direction will be even stronger, and we should worry even more about the degree of control he’ll attempt to wield over federal law enforcement,” said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College and co-director of Bright Line Watch, an academic group that monitors democracy in the U.S. “We have many examples from other countries demonstrating the dangers of a political takeover of law enforcement.”

To be sure, other risks for American democracy beyond a takeover of federal law enforcement remain. The myth that Trump won the 2020 election has taken firm hold in the Republican electorate, with nearly 60% of GOP voters saying in an Associated Press poll last fall that Biden was not legitimately elected. The belief has led millions to distrust voting machines, mail balloting and vote counting while leading to death threats against election officials.

Numerous rural counties have seen election conspiracy theorists take control of elections and vote-counting, raising worries of more election chaos next year. Certification of election results remains a potential pressure point for delaying or undermining a final outcome in the next election — whether by local commissions, state certification boards, legislatures or even Congress.

Despite those potential risks, the accelerating GOP primary has highlighted a new worry for some — calls by Trump and his allies for more control of federal prosecutions. Several legal experts highlighted this as perhaps the most troubling threat to the country’s democratic institutions should Trump — or another Republican — win the White House next year.

Currently, the president can appoint the attorney general and other top Department of Justice officials, subject to Senate confirmation, but has more limited tools to change the behavior of career prosecutors.

“Doing away with or diminishing the independence of the Justice Department would be a huge mistake,” said Paul Coggins, past president of the National Association of Former U.S. Attorneys. “We can’t afford for people to lose more faith in the system than they have now.”

He said federal prosecutors have been paying attention to Trump’s recent vows to seize greater control of the system.

“I think the fact that Trump has raised this idea sent shock waves through prosecutors everywhere,” Coggins said.

Trump and other conservatives have argued that such a takeover is overdue, especially because they see the prosecutions against him as the 2024 campaign is heating up as nakedly political. Indeed, after his previous indictment, Trump vowed to pursue Biden and his family should he return to the White House.

“This is the persecution of the person that’s leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot,” Trump told reporters after his most recent arraignment. “So if you can’t beat ’em, you persecute ’em or you prosecute ’em.”

At a Republican Party dinner Friday night in Alabama, Trump repeated his claims that the latest criminal case he faces is an “outrageous criminalization of political speech,” and said his “enemies” were trying to stop him and his political movement with “an army of rabid, left-wing lawyers, corrupt and really corrupt Marxist prosecutors,” “deranged government agents and rogue intelligence officers.”

He called the indictment “an act of desperation by a failed and disgraced, crooked Joe Biden and his radical left thugs to preserve their grip on power.”

The push does not only come from Trump, suggesting how his contentious views toward federal law enforcement have shaped a party that has long promoted itself as the protector of law-and-order. On the day the most recent indictment was released this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called for a new FBI director and the right for defendants to choose not to be prosecuted in Washington, D.C., a primarily Democratic city. House Republicans have empaneled a committee to investigate what they call the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement. FBI director Christopher Wray, a Republican nominated to the position by Trump, has become a frequent target of Republican attacks.