.png)
5 hours ago
4
“He who saves his country does not violate any law,” Donald Trump posted after beginning his second term – emboldened, perhaps, by the supreme court’s bombshell ruling on presidential immunity last year, which many say gave the office-holder the powers of a monarch.
Millions of Americans are expected to push back against the president’s growing power at No Kings protests across the US on Saturday. The demonstrations come as former intelligence and national security officials warn that the country is sliding towards “competitive authoritarianism”, in which elections and courts survive but are systematically manipulated by the executive.
The justice system is not a nice addition to democracy but a core, constitutive element of it. This is now imperilled not only by Mr Trump’s stacking of the judiciary, pardoning of January 6 rioters who assaulted police, and ignoring of rulings that restrain the executive’s actions, but also by its abuse for political ends. The US is descending from rule of law towards rule by law: from law as the restraint upon the executive, applied without fear or favour, to law as its weapon.
Thursday saw the announcement of the prosecution of John Bolton – the third high-profile political target of Mr Trump within a month to be criminally charged. Letitia James, the New York attorney general who successfully sued Mr Trump for fraud, was indicted for alleged mortgage fraud; the former FBI director James Comey, under whose watch the bureau investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, for an alleged false statement to Congress. Both deny all charges.
Mr Trump said the quiet part out loud in a social media post apparently published unintentionally, which urged Pam Bondi, the attorney general, to take legal action against Ms James, Mr Comey and the Democratic senator Adam Schiff: “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
The indictment of Mr Bolton for alleged mishandling of classified information – he denies the charges and drew parallels to Stalinist purges – is somewhat different. The other indictments followed the installation of a former personal lawyer for Mr Trump as prosecutor. This case was pursued under the Biden presidency and a career prosecutor signed off the charges.
Yet the administration shrugged when the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, shared details of planned military strikes with relatives and a journalist via a commercial messaging app. Mr Trump has repeatedly made plain his enmity for Mr Bolton, a former national security adviser turned outspoken critic, including by axing his security detail. He regularly calls for the jailing of opponents, including judges who obstruct his administration, as well as JB Pritzker, governor of Illinois, and Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s mayor, after the Democrats opposed the deployment of troops to the city.
Mr Trump has sold personal vindictiveness as political righteousness, campaigning with the words “I am your retribution”. He has been remarkably successful. In a recent survey, a third of Republicans backed the idea that American citizens who oppose the president should be deported.
The administration has already presented Saturday’s protests as a threat to order. Mr Trump’s political triumph has been built on invoking crisis to distract from or justify the erasure of democratic safeguards. This is an old playbook, and no less frightening for its familiarity. It is the weaponising of a fundamental part of US democracy that is the real emergency.
