Mark Paoletta is probably not widely known to most Americans, but in the nation’s capital, especially in Republican legal circles, he’s a well-known figure. In fact, over the last decade or so, Paoletta served as legal counsel to then-Vice President Mike Pence, general counsel to the Office of Management and Budget in the first Trump administration, and even represented Ginni Thomas.
This week, the GOP lawyer took on a new role, helping oversee Donald Trump’s plans for the Justice Department during the pre-inauguration transition. That wouldn’t be especially notable were it not for the fact that Paoletta also published an online statement this week, arguing that Trump will have the right to dictate who gets investigated by federal law enforcement — and perhaps even who gets indicted. Politico reported:
“He has the duty to supervise DOJ, including, if necessary, on specific cases,” Paoletta wrote on X. “Our system does not permit an unaccountable agency. As Chief Justice Roberts held in U.S. v. Trump, ‘the constitution vests the entirety of the executive power in the President.’” Paoletta noted that in 1984 President Ronald Reagan shut down a grand jury antitrust investigation into British airlines and in 1992 President George H.W. Bush urged the Justice Department to intensify its investigation into the Los Angeles police officers involved in beating motorist Rodney King.
In the same missive, the lawyer wrote that Democrats “went after” Trump “solely to punish him because he was a political opponent” — a claim that continues to have no basis in reality.
But does Paoletta have a point about presidential authority? As always, context matters. Politico’s report noted that the examples he included were “rare exceptions since the 1970s, when targeting of political opponents by President Richard Nixon and revelations of FBI abuses of the civil liberties of civil rights activists led to policies that sought to wall off the White House from civil and criminal enforcement actions overseen by the Justice Department. Since President Jimmy Carter, officials from every administration — including Trump’s first one — have issued memos limiting such contacts.”
Evidently, there’s fresh reason to believe that the post-Watergate firewalls — built to prevent undue political influence over prosecutorial decision-making — will face new challenges beginning in the new year, which is not good news for those concerned about the future of the rule of law.
To hear Paoletta tell it, however, there’s no cause for alarm. “President Trump will not use the DOJ for political purposes, that is to go after individuals simply because they are political opponents,” he added.
That might be more reassuring were it not for the overwhelming evidence that Trump repeatedly tried to use the Justice Department for political purposes — targeting individuals simply because they were political opponents — throughout his first term.
Indeed, as recently as 2020 — nearly four years after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton — the then-president publicly called for the Democrat’s incarceration and lobbied the Justice Department to prosecute his former opponent for reasons unknown. Around the same time, Trump publicly called on federal prosecutors to charge Joe Biden — his electoral challenger at the time — accusing him of undefined crimes.
Thankfully those efforts failed, but the fact that Trump made the effort is what matters.
This wasn’t kept secret. It happened out in the open. We all saw it play out. It’s odd that Paoletta apparently missed it.
As for the bigger picture, New York magazine’s Jon Chait concluded, “A major theme of the conservative rationale for giving Trump power is that he would be restrained by normal Republicans. But now the normal Republicans are saying that, when it comes to his most dangerous power, they cannot and will not restrain him.”
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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