Why Legal Experts Are Worried About a Second Trump Presidency

As a candidate for president once again, Donald Trump could not be clearer about his plans to use the Justice Department to seek revenge against his enemies. During his 2016 campaign, his rallies exploded with the chant “Lock Her Up.” NowTrump talks about ordering prosecutions against so many people that his threats have become commonplace. “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences,” Trump posted online in September about election administrators, among others. It’s just one example in a long list that extends to President Biden and his family, Vice President Kamala Harris, members of Congress, prosecutors, judges and former F.B.I., Department of Justice and national-security officials.

Trump, of course, also says that he’s currently the victim of political prosecution by the Biden administration. Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, charged Trump in Florida for refusing to return classified documents and in Washington for trying to overturn the 2020 election. State prosecutors, both Democrats, brought election-related charges in Georgia and convicted Trump in New York of a hush-money scheme to influence the 2016 election. In his telling, all the cases are witch hunts by “Politicized ‘Persecutors.’” Retorting to Harris at their debate in September, Trump said: “They talk about democracy: I’m a threat to democracy. They’re the threat to democracy — with the fake Russia Russia Russia investigation that went nowhere.”

But there is a fundamental difference between the investigations Trump threatens and the ones he’s now subject to. There is no known evidence that Biden instigated these