Don Moynihan writes:

One trademark of an authoritarian regime is the use of the legal system to target political opponents and forgive friends. This has the effect of undermining our basic conception of the law as a set of rules that is fairly and consistently applied. It also centralizes authority and undermines government capacity.

Trump’s call for Federal Reserve member Lisa Cook to resign, under the threat of a DOJ investigation, is a clear example of this type of authoritarianism.

The Trump administration has already aggressively weaponized the legal system. He has pardoned the January 6th rioters. His personal defense lawyers now hold the top positions in the DOJ. One of them, Todd Blanche, has provided more favorable treatment for Ghislaine Maxwell in the search for exculpatory information about Trump, and is also alleged to have personally ordered the arrest of the Mayor of Newark.

In the federal government, DOJ officials involved in Trump investigations have been fired. The DOJ has opened mortgage fraud investigations into a prosecutor who has continued to dog Trump, New York Attorney General Letitia James, as well as one of his chief critics in Congress, Adam Schiff.

Now it is not just Trump’s opponents who are potential targets. It is anyone who is in his way. Trump has fired career bureaucrats, and the heads of independent agencies, with the acquiescence of the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court explicitly identified one exception to Trump’s purges: The Federal Reserve. But if more members of the Fed resigned, Trump would control the most powerful federal agency not currently under his influence. If he cannot fire them, Trump might be able to force their resignation, assaulting central bank independence via threats and intimidation. [Continue reading…]