David Leonhardt Weighs In On The Tragic Wreck Of The United States Department Of Justice

Former FBI Agent Asha Rangappa: “I have really tried to have, and encourage others to have, faith in the resiliency of our institutions. But today I just feel so much sadness — grief, really — over what is happening. There is a cancer in the White House, and it has spread to the Justice Department.”

By David Leonhardt Opinion Columnist

First: After Watergate, the Department of Justice created a new ethos that was meant to keep future presidents from abusing their power. That ethos would ensure that the department was the most independent, least partisan agency of the executive branch.

Presidents would continue to set policy, obviously, but they would not influence specific investigations. They would not use the law to protect themselves and their allies or to punish their political rivals. “Our law is not an instrument of partisan purpose,” said Edward Levi, the first post-Watergate attorney general, appointed by President Gerald Ford. Griffin Bell, who succeeded Levi and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter, described the Justice Department as “a neutral zone in the government, because the law has to be neutral.”

President Trump has never hidden his disagreement with this ethos. He believes that the Justice Department should report to the president and act in his interest, including punishing a president’s opponents and protecting his allies.

If you want to understand why Trump became so furious with Jeff Sessions, his first attorney general, it’s because Sessions — for all his conservatism — essentially believed in the post-Watergate ethos. Trump’s current attorney general, William Barr, does not. Barr is with Trump: When presidential power and equal justice come into conflict, power should usually win.

Yesterday, political appointees at the Justice Department overruled career prosecutors who had recommended a seven- to nine-year prison sentence for Roger Stone, for trying to sabotage an investigation that threatened Trump. The department did so shortly after Trump had blasted the requested sentence on Twitter.

Four prosecutors quickly quit in protest. In doing so, they were sacrificing their careers on behalf of a principle that presidents of both parties used to uphold.

Elsewhere: Asha Rangappa, former F.B.I. agent: “I have really tried to have, and encourage others to have, faith in the resiliency of our institutions. But today I just feel so much sadness — grief, really — over what is happening. There is a cancer in the White House, and it has spread to the Justice Department.”

Harry Litman, a former prosecutor, in The Washington Post: “It is hard to overstate the irregularity and impropriety of the department’s rollback of Stone’s sentence. … As a general matter, the Justice Department and the White House are supposed to communicate only in rare, well-defined instances and almost never about the results of individual cases.”

Elizabeth de la Vega, another former prosecutor, noted that the judge in the case, Amy Berman Jackson, could ignore the new Justice Department request and sentence Stone “as she sees fit.”