Continued from Part I…
The Adams case is just the latest example of a now-established pattern of Trump’s politicization of the DOJ and his readiness to discard any pretense of respecting the rule of law so long as the accused has ‘kissed the ring.’ We have seen this before: from Roger Stone’s reduced sentence after a classic midnight Trump Twitter tirade to Trump’s quiet interventions in legal probes involving political allies. The latter occurred recently when the DOJ abruptly withdrew federal attorneys from Nashville who were investigating Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles just days after he introduced a resolution to give Trump a third term – a loyalty play that, while absurd, has paid off. What makes Adams’ situation particularly concerning is how quickly the DOJ pivoted, not just to protect Adams but to secure his compliance with Trump’s immigration and crime agenda. Legal accountability has been reduced and normalized to a transactional exercise.
In addition to meddling in ongoing investigations and legal proceedings, Trump has leveraged the presidential pardon power as an easy out for those with the connections and the willingness to bend the knee. The same day as the DOJ’s Adams memo, Trump pardoned former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, whose sentence Trump had previously commuted. Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison in 2011 as a result of recordings that showed his attempts to sell then-President Obama’s vacated Senate seat in addition to illicit actions taken to obtain campaign contributions. Luckily for Blagojevich, he had established a personal connection with Trump in 2010 when he was a contestant on Trump’s reality show “The Celebrity Apprentice” following Blagojevich’s expulsion from the governorship on corruption charges. In addition to his connection to Trump, Blagojevich’s wife made numerous appearances on Fox News throughout the tail-end of Trump’s first stint in office, where she appealed for her husband’s release and attacked Trump’s enemies. Trump admitted that this influenced his decision to commute the corrupt politician’s sentence in 2020. Given this pattern of giving felony-convicted or, in Adams’ case, felony-charged politicians in good standing with Trump a “get out of jail free” card, it is unsurprising that by the end of his first term, Trump had pardoned “a majority of Republican congressmen convicted of felonies in the 21st century.”
While unethical use of the presidential pardon under Trump has become disturbingly systemic, such misuse extends beyond one administration. Former President Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, stands as another disturbing example of favoritism superseding the rule of law. The act raised troubling questions about the integrity of the pardon power itself, fueling the debate over whether this unchecked presidential authority can remain viable in its current form. Biden was, at least in the eyes of progressives such as myself, able to do significant good with his mass pardon of those suffering for simple marijuana possession in 2022. However, whether or not the presidential pardon system remains a net positive is a question worth exploring.
The dismissal of the investigation into Mayor Eric Adams is not an isolated incident but part of a larger trend where political favoritism overrides legal accountability. As Trump’s influence and audacity continue to grow, we see the disturbing normalization of using the DOJ and the presidential pardon as tools for political gain. What is at stake is not just the fate of individuals like Adams or Blagojevich but the integrity of the U.S. justice system itself.
As more cases of political interference emerge, it becomes clear that the American public is increasingly left to rely on a legal system that is controlled more by political power than the rule of law. Without adequate checks on political interference in the justice system, we risk a future where justice is no longer defined by facts and impartiality but by political alliances and self-serving loyalty to those in power. Then again, we may already be there.
Image by Mark Strozier from Wikimedia Commons
