to the editor: Governor Gavin Newsom and millions of other Americans have reason to be alarmed that the authoritarian President Trump seeks to destroy anyone who crosses him (“Newsom says the Justice Department is conducting a baseless investigation into him and his wife at Trump's direction.” June 15). This is another example, among many others, of how Trump uses and corrupts the Department of Justice as a weapon to force it to compel evidence for the criminal prosecution of his detractors.
With his typical baseless falsehoods and pathological projection, Trump accused Joe Biden of turning the Department of Justice into a weapon while Biden was president. That was total nonsense. In fact, Biden stayed away interference with Atty. General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice. Garland himself was overly cautious and avoided the appearance of politically motivated criminal investigations.
When Garland appointed a special prosecutor, prestigious career prosecutor Jack Smith, Smith conducted an exhaustive investigation before ultimately charging Trump with a series of serious crimes. Those criminal charges could have been vindicated in real trials if Trump had not dropped all pending cases upon returning to the White House.
Now it is Trump who is actually carrying out vindictive prosecutions, ordering his unfit and disreputable appointees at the Justice Department to go after Trump's perceived enemies. It is Trump, not Biden, who has repeatedly breached the wall of rules and independence between our Justice Department and the president.
It is Trump, not Biden, who has so corrupted the Justice Department that numerous longtime federal prosecutors and others they have resigned instead of carrying out vindictive and baseless criminal investigations that Trump demanded. It is Trump who has destroyed our rule of law.
TR Jahns, Hemet
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to the editor: With news that Trump's henchmen are now going after Newsom, along with illegitimate attacks on other opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey and the New York prosecutor. General Letitia James, the so-called Department of Justice should go ahead and be renamed Trump's Department of Injustice.
Mike Greene, Oceanside
