The Justice Department is once again acting as Donald Trump’s personal law firm rather than doing what the Justice Department is supposed to do. The department’s mission statement is “To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.” But why defend the interests of the United States and ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans when you, as Republican lawyers, can represent one Republican official—Donald John Trump?
The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel signed off on Team Trump’s obstruction campaign against the House impeachment inquiry, Politico reports, and made that decision public timed with the Trump defense team’s brief as the impeachment trial begins.
The timing of the OLC’s very convenient opinion isn’t clear—did it come before or after White House counsel Pat Cipollone announced, in a belligerent and poorly argued letter, the White House’s intent to obstruct the investigation? If it came before, why wouldn’t he have mentioned it? The opinion as released now includes citations to a dissent by a Trump-appointed judge that was issued after Cipollone’s intent-to-obstruct letter.
And the opinion is focused on Trump’s right to block an investigation that hadn’t been formally voted by the whole House as an impeachment inquiry: “We conclude that the House must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation before the committee may compel the production of documents or testimony in support of the House’s sole power of impeachment,” Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel wrote. But of course the full House ultimately did vote to formalize an impeachment inquiry, and that changed nothing about Trump’s obstruction campaign, which continues to this day.
But it’s another clear statement that this Justice Department sees itself as an instrument of Trump’s will.