When senior government officials abuse their power by wielding law enforcement for private ends, whether to attack their enemies or protect their allies, they strike at the heart of constitutional democracy. They make a mockery of “equal justice under law,” the central animating principle of the American experiment and one that, in the main, Republican and Democratic administrations have striven to honor.
That principle distinguishes liberal democracies based on the rule of law from autocracies in countries like Egypt, Russia and Venezuela — or from crumbling democracies in places like Hungary.
President Trump, with his authoritarian nature, does not respect any of this. From basking in “lock her up” chants during the 2016 campaign to pushing James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, to drop a criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn; from attacking his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the Russia investigation to pardoning the former Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio, Mr. Trump has treated the justice system, and the Justice Department, as his personal protection and vendetta machine.
Early Tuesday, he did it again, weighing in on the impending criminal sentencing of Roger Stone, his longtime political adviser and fixer. A jury convicted Mr. Stone last year of obstructing justice, lying to Congress and threatening a witness with bodily harm. (Mr. Stone also threatened the federal judge presiding over his case, which his lawyers chalked up to anxiety for which he was undergoing therapy.) Federal prosecutors handling the case, which was brought as part of the Robert Mueller investigation, had sought a prison sentence of seven to nine years, which was within the sentencing guidelines range. |
