As Trump’s Justice Department moves ahead with its investigation into the Obama administration over claims of “treason,” former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance warned that the DOJ’s latest actions have just put the United States “in a red zone for danger.”
First announced by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the investigation alleges that former President Barack Obama and other administration officials knowingly pushed false claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election, claims that President Donald Trump has characterized as an effort to politically target him.
And while the investigation has already been described as a dud and without merit by many critics, including by many of Trump’s own supporters, Vance suggests that its very existence sets a new, dangerous precedent going forward.
“Survival among Trump’s appointees is about one thing and one thing only: keeping the boss happy,” Vance wrote Tuesday in a legal analysis on Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance.
“(Attorney General Pam) Bondi understands that. But keeping the boss happy is not an attorney general’s job. The Justice Department isn’t supposed to be a political tool in the president’s hip pocket. We are in a red zone for danger.”
This week, Bondi moved to direct federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation into the DOJ’s claims against Obama administration officials. This development, Vance said, suggests that the case “is quite far along,” or that “a serious investigation is underway,” which itself, she argued, “smacks of political interference.”
“It’s extraordinary that we know about it at all,” Vance wrote. “Even though witnesses aren’t bound by the same grand jury secrecy rules that prosecutors and others are, it’s extremely unusual to have this sort of public revelation of a grand jury process.”
Experts have largely decried the claims behind the DOJ’s investigation as “wildly misleading,” and unlikely to lead to any criminal indictments. However, Trump, who as president is expected to maintain a distance from investigations carried out by the judicial branch, continues to champion Bondi’s efforts, telling CNBC this week that Obama officials “deserve” to be investigated, and that he was “happy to hear” it had been launched.
“If the president can dictate who gets indicted and who doesn’t, all pretense of fairness would be replaced with a world where prosecutions could be politically motivated,” Vance wrote. “Insulating (the) DOJ from direct presidential control is essential to preventing weaponization of the justice system by an administration against its political opponents or for personal gain.”