Crime Is On The Rise ... In The Oval Office

Donald Trump is running the executive branch of our federal government as if it were a criminal enterprise, or put more bluntly, a mob organization. When he’s not golfing, he seems to spend his days signing one unconstitutional executive order after another. Courts have ruled that his administration has unlawfully fired thousands of federal employees and he’s been ordered to rehire them. Three judges have ruled that his executive orders punishing law firms that displease him are “likely unconstitutional” and issued restraining orders putting a stop, at least temporarily, to the unlawful retaliation. With the stroke of a sharpie, Trump tried to cancel the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, which one of our country’s longest serving federal judges said was “brazenly unconstitutional.” Even the United States Supreme Court shot him down when he tried to stiff contractors to the tune of $2 billion, refusing to pay them for services already performed and goods already delivered under binding government contracts. His name may be Donald Trump but he’s acting more like the movie character “Don” Vito Corleone. The Godfather may be an entertaining movie, but when a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) gang comes to Washington, our republic is in peril.

Most of us are familiar with the structure of mob organizations:

Trump has his dutiful, if someone clownish, underboss in Vice President JD Vance. Watching Vance perform for Trump in their recent Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was beyond cringe worthy, coming off like a scene that would have been cut from the script of a third-rate mob movie. Vance flat out accused Zelenskyy of not showing the Don the proper respect: “Have you even said thank you once? No, in this entire meeting, have you said thank you?”

Like any good criminal organization, the Don needs a dirty lawyer by his side, an ethics-free consigliere to twist, contort, and pervert the rule of law until it’s no longer recognizable.

In The Godfather, Don Corleone had his consigliere/lawyer, Tom Hagan (played by Robert Duvall). Unfortunately for our nation, Trump has a trio of consiglieres - Bondi, Blanche, and Bove - to do his dirty bidding.

I worked at the Department of Justice for 24 of my 30 years as a prosecutor, serving under nine Attorneys General, five of whom were appointed by Republican presidents and four by Democrats. During my time at the DOJ, regardless of who was occupying the AG’s office, our work always remained apolitical. All of that has changed.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has already tarnished the Department of Justice in ways unimaginable. On day one, she published a memo that contained a list of Trump’s enemies she intended to pursue (Jack Smith and his staff, Alvin Bragg and his staff, Leticia James and her staff, J6 investigators and prosecutors). It’s impossible to overstate how wrong it is to announce on day one who you intend to investigate when you have no evidentiary basis that any crime was even committed. 

This would be like a surgeon walking into a patient’s room, knowing nothing about the patient’s condition or possible ailments, and announcing, “let’s just amputate some limbs.”

Bondi recently debased herself in a way no other AG ever has. When asked about the obvious security breach involving the Signal chat debacle – high government officials using a commercial app and mistakenly including a reporter in the conversation about an imminent military attack – AG Bondi started spewing nonsense about Hillary Clinton’s emails. She came across as a third-rate PR flack and someone entirely unworthy of her current office.

Number two at Justice and consigliere-in-training, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, is faring no better. Blanche sent a terse memo to Liz Oyer firing her from her job as Pardon Attorney at the Department of Justice. Blanche neither delivered the memo personally nor provided any reason for the termination. Instead, Blanche “sent two security officers – who looked positively ill over the task – to execute his orders,” according to Oyer. As she further relates:

“One of the most sneakily frustrating aspects of my abrupt firing from the Department of Justice 25 days ago has been that I no longer have access to ANYTHING, including information about the benefits I accrued during my service.  Like many federal employees, my entire family was covered by my health insurance policy. I have been told that I have a 30-day window to extend my health coverage (at double the cost to my family). But after countless calls to a 1-800 number, and with five days remaining, I still have not received any information about how I can do so. In fact, I have not received one single shred of paperwork pertaining to my rights and benefits as a former federal employee. Literally, the last thing I heard from DOJ was in the form of the memo Todd Blanche sent me on March 7 advising that I was fired effective immediately.  I have also requested from DOJ a copy of my personnel file, including my annual performance evaluations, which seem obviously important to have under my current circumstances. I was rushed out of the building without the opportunity to collect these on the day of my firing. I received a response from DOJ today that explained that my request was designated ‘Complex,’ and therefore that I should not expect a response within any defined period of time.  I just want folks to know that the horrible treatment being doled out to civil servants by the Bondi-Blanche-Bove DOJ does not stop when they show you the door. The lack of basic decency continues through their undignified and inhumane treatment of fired federal workers and their families. I just don't have the words to capture my disappointment and disgust.”

Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove is also setting new lows for DOJ “leadership.” He took point on the dirty quid-pro-quo deal involving a pending public corruption prosecution against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Under the Biden administration, prosecutors presented evidence to a federal grand jury of suspected criminal conduct by Adams – including bribery, conspiracy, and wire fraud – and the grand jury indicted Adams.

Enter the Trump era, and Bove tells Judge Dale Ho, who presided over the Adams case, that DOJ seeks to dismiss the criminal case because the administration wants Adams to be in a position to assist Trump with his political priorities, like immigration and deportation. Bove adds that they want to dismiss the case “without prejudice,” meaning they can reindict him on a whim in the event he doesn’t remain a good little mayor and do what Trump wants him to do. You don’t need to be a lawyer to know that this dirty deal runs contrary to very nature and purpose of the criminal just system. Prosecutors bring cases to hold wrongdoers accountable for their crimes, not to extract political favors from defendants.

In a new, 78-page ruling, Judge Ho rejected Bove’s position and dismissed Adams’ case with prejudice, so Trump’s DOJ cannot use the threat of a future prosecution on the same charges as political leverage against Adams.

But that’s not all Judge Ho said in his new ruling and order. He found that the reasons Bove gave the court for wanting to dismiss Adams’ case were “pretextual.” Translating that from judge-speak to English: Bove was lying to the court about at least some of the reasons he offered for the attempted dismissal. Here are some of the other damning findings by Judge Ho:

- “DOJ’s first asserted rationale for dismissing this case – that it has been tainted by ‘appearances of impropriety,’ . . . – is unsupported by any objective evidence.”

- Regarding Bove’s assertion that it’s perfectly appropriate to dismiss a criminal case so that the defendant will be better able to assist a president with his political priorities, Judge Ho noted: “DOJ’s arguments trigger concerns regarding political favoritism in prosecutorial decision-making, . . . ethics rules prohibit such political considerations in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.” 

- As an exclamation point, Judge Ho emphasized: “the Constitution created a government dedicated to equal justice under the law, . . . not one in which criminal liability may depend on the defendant’s alignment with the policy preferences of the incumbent administration. The breathtaking implications of DOJ’s position – which were apparently well-understood by the numerous attorneys at USAO-SDNY and DOJ who resigned rather than sign this (motion to dismiss) – are difficult to square with the words engraved above the front entrance of the United States Supreme Court: ‘Equal Justice Under Law.’”  

For his part in this unethical political play, Bove has already been referred to both his state bar counsel and DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility for possible ethics violations. Judge Ho’s findings regarding Bove’s conduct should all but seal his fate if and when the New York State bar conducts the requested – and imminently warranted – ethics investigation.

Once America emerges from the Trump-induced darkness, all ofthe DOJ lawyers who have engaged in this egregious, abusive, unethical behavior must be held accountable.

But I want to circle back to Trump’s mafia-esque conduct. His “likely unconstitutional” executive orders threatening law firms are indistinguishable from a mob-style protection racket. He tells law firms that he will cancel all business they have with the federal government, he will retaliate against the firms’ clients, and he’ll even prohibit the firms’ lawyers from entering government buildings, unless the law firms do a little something nice for him. Talk about an offer you can’t refuse!

How is this different from a mafia boss sending his soldiers into mom-and-pop businesses in mob-controlled neighborhoods, telling the store owners they need to pay “protection money” to make sure nothing happens to their bodega. This is a shakedown, plain and simple.

How do the threatened law firms respond? Some stand up to the Don, filing lawsuits and winning restraining orders from federal court judges putting a temporary stop to Trump’s retaliatory and abusive executive orders. Unfortunately, some firms succumb to the threats, making the pilgrimage to the Oval Office, and paying millions of dollars in protection money to keep their law firms from figuratively being fire-bombed out of business.  

As if all of this wasn’t horrific enough, Bondi, Blanche, and Bove are sending DOJ lawyers into court to argue that Trump’s unconstitutional executive orders are . . . wait for it . . . constitutional. This kind of government doublespeak would make George Orwell blush.

As but one example of how DOJ lawyers are not just losing in court, but are inspiring incredulity from federal court judges, consider the case involving Trump’s retaliatory executive order against the Law firm WilmerHale. Paul Clement, the attorney representing WilmerHale in litigation seeking to have the executive order ruled unconstitutional, was the United States Solicitor General under President George W. Bush, argued more than 100 cases before the US Supreme Court, and is a storied and stalwart conservative lawyer.

Clement argued to Judge Richard Leon, the judge presiding over the WilmerHale litigation, that “The President’s sweeping attack on WilmerHale (and other firms) is unprecedented and unconstitutional. The First Amendment protects the rights of WilmerHale, its employees, and its clients to speak freely, petition the courts and other government institutions, and associate with the counsel of their choice without facing retaliation and discrimination by federal officials.”

During the court hearing, Judge Leon, who, incidentally, was appointed by a Republican president, pressed the DOJ attorney on whether Trump’s executive order directing the federal government to terminate any business it has with WilmerHale and even barring the firm’s attorneys from entering federal government buildings would cause the firm’s clients to go elsewhere for legal representation, prompting this exchange (as reported by CNN):

“Wouldn’t that uncertainty have a chilling effect?” Leon asked DOJ attorney Richard Lawson, at one point adding that the (executive) order was “like a sword of Damocles hanging over (the firm’s) head.”

Leon seemed particularly concerned with a section of the executive order that barred the firm (lawyers) from entering government buildings. “This (the courthouse in which the case was being litigated) is a government building. The Supreme Court is a government building,”Leon pointed out.

When (DOJ lawyer) Lawson couldn’t speak to whether prospective clients of WilmerHale would worry about whether their lawyers could enter courthouses, the judge appeared incredulous. “Have you practiced law? Have you had clients?” he asked. “Then use your common sense.”

Not surprisingly, Judge Leon issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration.

DOJ attorneys are being trounced in court. Routinely. As well they should be. It’s difficult for those of us who spent our careers at DOJ representing the interests of the American people to understand how these DOJ attorneys demean themselves by arguing that plainly unconstitutional executive orders are constitutional. It seems obvious that such arguments violate their sworn oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

As yet another example: when Trump signed an executive order attempting to revoke the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, Judge John Coughenour – a President Ronald Reagan appointee – said the order is “blatantly unconstitutional.”

“It has become ever more apparent that to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain,” the judge said. “Nevertheless, in this courtroom and under my watch, the rule of law is a bright beacon which I intend to follow.”

The judge made clear how he felt about the arguments being offered by Trump’s DOJ attorneys (as reported by CNN):

“Coughenour said the precedent is so clear that he was surprised that the Trump administration had been able to find attorneys willing to defend the executive order’s legality.”

One final example: in litigation brought against the Trump administration for wrongfully terminating thousands of probationary employees, the presiding Judge, William Alsup, took aim at the absurd arguments and conduct of Trump’s DOJ lawyers (as reported by The Hill):

“Come on, that’s a sham. Go ahead. It upsets me, I want you to know that. I’ve been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years, and I know how do we get at the truth, . . . And you’re not helping me get at the truth. You’re giving me press releases, sham documents.”  

DOJ lawyers swear an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. DOJ lawyers are supposed to represent the interests of the American people. So how can any honest, ethical, self-respecting DOJ lawyer go into court and argue against the interests of the American people – like telling judges that attorneys from certain law firms should be barred from entering courthouses and other federal buildings? In substance, arguing that the unconstitutional is constitutional.

I guess, such is the lot of a Trump consigliere.