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Civitas Outlook
Topic
Politics
Published on
Jan 27, 2022
Contributors
John Yoo
Victoria Toensing

Prosecute the Architects of Trump Lawfare for Election Interference

Contributors
John Yoo
John Yoo
Senior Research Fellow
John Yoo
Victoria Toensing
Victoria Toensing
Victoria Toensing
Summary
Rather than revenge, the Justice Department should defend the constitutional rights of candidate Trump and his voters.
Summary
Rather than revenge, the Justice Department should defend the constitutional rights of candidate Trump and his voters.
Listen to this article

In his second inaugural address, President Donald Trump declared that the “weaponization of our Justice Department and our government will end” and that he would “re-balance” the scales of justice. He now faces an important decision: whether to investigate the founders of the lawfare campaigns against him — beginning with New York Attorney General Letitia James and New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg. He would have at his disposal the same legal theory that the Biden Justice Department constructed just for him: interfering with the presidential election deprived Americans of their constitutional rights to run for office and vote.

Special Counsel Jack Smith announced this unprecedented theory by charging Trump with depriving all Americans of their voting rights by challenging the outcome of the 2020 election.

The demise of independent counsels, which had a very low threshold to trigger appointment, illustrates how Democrats respond when feeling the sting of onerous investigations. Democrats loved the 1978 Independent Counsel Act, which was used five times against the Reagan administration and twice against George H.W. Bush. It was “good government” until it wasn’t. When the Clinton administration got hit with seven independent counsels, enough was enough. Democrats cheered its expiration in 1999, having discovered it was too costly.

Continue reading the entire article at The Federalist

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