As a Republican presidential candidate struggling to break through in a crowded field, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson has an incentive to take positions different from his intra-party rivals. It was against this backdrop that the Arkansan said something unusual on ABC News’ “This Week” yesterday.
Lamenting the fact that so much of the GOP is talking about the “weaponization of the Justice Department,” Hutchinson told Jonathan Karl, “Let’s back off of these accusations, and let’s get back to being the party of the rule of law, of the justice system supporting law enforcement and equal application of the law. Let’s don’t undermine the greatest justice system and criminal justice system and rule of law in the world today, this side of heaven.”
Given the current state of Republican rhetoric, especially in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s federal criminal indictment, the former governor is a lone voice in the wilderness.
Different GOP contingents have responded to the charges against the former president in competing ways, but the dominant partisan message has been unmistakable: Whether Trump is guilty or not, Republicans are largely united in their belief that the real problem is with federal law enforcement and the nation’s system of justice.
The former president is clearly going to great lengths to lash out wildly against the Justice Department, the FBI, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and special counsel Jack Smith, but as the Associated Press noted last week, Trump’s Capitol Hill allies are following suit.
The mounting legal jeopardy Trump finds himself in has quickly become a political rallying cry for the Republicans, many of whom acknowledged they had not fully read the 49-page federal indictment but stood by the indicted former president, adopting his grievances against the federal justice system as their own. It’s an unparalleled example of how Trump has transformed the Republican Party that once embraced “law and order” but is now defending, justifying and explaining away the grave charges he faces.
All the while, talk among GOP officials about “defunding“ federal law enforcement seems to grow louder by the day.
This isn’t just about undermining specific agencies and their leaders. It’s about convincing Americans that the system itself is unworthy of its trust and confidence.
Republicans are pushing this line — relentlessly and without regard for consequences — not because they’re uncovered evidence of systemic wrongdoing. Rather, the party is motivated by far cruder considerations: Law enforcement is holding a Republican accountable for alleged felonies, which necessarily means that system must be smeared — in part to protect their corrupt leader, and in part to discourage similar attempts at accountability in the future.
And why does that matter? For a few reasons.
1. This campaign is dangerous. The United States only has two major political parties. When one of them tries to convince its base that the justice system is not to be trusted — in effect, delegitimizing federal law enforcement — the consequences are worth worrying about.
As a Washington Post report summarized last week, “Experts on extremism have raised alarms about the potential for violence stemming from rhetoric that demonizes law enforcement and in some cases encourages Trump supporters to resist.”
Sen. Marco Rubio responded to Trump’s latest indictment by insisting that “these people” — he didn’t identify his rhetorical target — are “shredding public faith in the institutions that hold our republic together.” It was among the more ironic complaints the Florida Republican has ever made: It’s his party that’s waged a deliberate campaign against institutions that have long stood as the pillars of modern American life. Just in recent years, Republicans have told their base not to trust independent news organizations. Or historians. Or election administrators. Or business leaders the party considers “woke.” Or economists. Or scientists. Or public-health officials.
No good can come from the fact that the GOP is now adding the justice system to its target list.
2. The GOP’s claims aren’t true. To hear Trump and his allies tell it, a corrupt and politicized justice system has been weaponized by President Joe Biden and his administration, who are hellbent on using law enforcement as a tool against their perceived enemies.
To bolster their claims, Republicans point to … nothing in particular. The House GOP came up with a special “weaponization” panel, specifically tasked with uncovering evidence to support the party’s conspiracy theories, and it has failed so spectacularly that even other Republicans have complained about the lack of results.
But it’s not entirely Chairman Jim Jordan’s fault: He hasn’t found evidence because there is no evidence to find. The party’s claims are baseless. 3. The campaign is hysterically hypocritical. For all of the partisan nonsense, what Republicans routinely fail to notice is that Trump did exactly what they’re falsely accusing Biden of doing. We don’t even need to speculate: The former president’s own team has acknowledged this publicly. When John Bolton was recently asked whether Trump’s Justice Department had been weaponized, Trump’s former White House national security advisor replied, “I can attest to it personally.” John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, similarly told The New York Times about the “broader pattern” of the former president “trying to use the Justice Department and his authority as president against people who had been critical of him.” For those who aren’t inclined take their word for it, there’s an avalanche of related evidence. In Trump’s first year in the White House, he publicly pleaded with the Justice Department to go after his foes. A year later, the then-president told the White House counsel that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Ahead of Election Day 2020, Trump called for Clinton’s incarceration and lobbied then-Attorney General Barr to go after Biden for reasons unknown. The New York Times reported last year that Trump and his team “tried to turn the nation’s law enforcement apparatus into an instrument of political power” to carry out the then-president’s wishes. It’s a subject we’ve discussed on multiple occasions: There were far too many examples of the Justice Department taking extraordinary steps to intervene in cases of interest to Trump, as Barr tried to steer prosecutorial decisions in ways consistent with the White House’s political wishes. A Washington Post analysis published soon after highlighted not only the many instances in which Trump not only leaned on the Justice Department to follow his wishes, but also Trump’s efforts to push federal law enforcement to validate the Big Lie in the wake of his election defeat. The same Republicans who are now desperate to malign the Justice Department and the system it helps undergird said absolutely nothing about Trump’s efforts — during or after his time in the White House. Now, however, we’re expected to find their baseless partisan whining to be credible, despite the fact that it’s literally and demonstrably unbelievable. Making matters vastly worse, Trump is making no secret of his plans to finish the job in a second term, vowing to appoint his own anti-Biden prosecutor after the 2024 elections — another promise GOP lawmakers are choosing to ignore while they complain about politicized law enforcement. Asa Hutchinson gave his party some excellent advice yesterday. It’s a shame Republicans will ignore him.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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