Trump’s department of injustice: Impunity for friends, brutality for enemies

We’re all familiar with the idea that actions have consequences. Parents teach it to their children as an important part of raising responsible human beings. As adults, we sometimes get harsh reminders of this truth. 

This principle doesn’t apply just on a personal level. Our justice system imposes consequences on people who break the law or harm others. For a society that is free, fair and just, those consequences must apply to everyone. That’s why “equal justice under law” is carved in stone over the entrance to our Supreme Court. 

Unfortunately, the Trump regime makes a mockery of that principle, insulating the president, his underlings, his friends and anyone willing to pay his price from the consequences of their lawbreaking.  

Trump started his second term by pardoning violent Jan. 6 rioters who attacked police and vandalized the Capitol. Since then, he has turned the presidential pardon power from an instrument of mercy into a money–making and loyalty-rewarding mechanism. While he denies life-saving aid to Minnesotans on Medicaid as part of a supposed war on fraud, Trump regularly pardons white-collar fraudsters, denying more than a billion dollars in compensation to the people they ripped off.

Trump and his team have backed violent and abusive Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents even when they kill American citizens. And we’ve just learned from a Department of Homeland Security whistleblower that ICE officials gutted training for new agents, encouraged them to violate the Constitution and then lied about it to Congress. I’m not holding my breath that anyone will be held accountable for any of it. 

Making this worse is the........

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