Is Obama’s call for Justice Department independence an impossible dream?

Former President Barack Obama last week suggested we should “codify” the “basic norm” that a president should not be able to direct the attorney general to “go around prosecuting whoever the president wants prosecuted.”

In his interview with Stephen Colbert aired May 5 on “The Late Show,” Obama avoided mentioning the president by name though it was clear that he had the current occupant of the White House in mind when he said the attorney general is “the people’s lawyer,” and not the president’s “consigliere” to go after “political enemies.”

President Trump has publicly announced he wants the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute those he considers political foes. For instance, last September he posted on Truth Social an advisory to Attorney General Pam Bondi: “Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts… same old story [of] all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell but nothing is being done.”

In April, Bondi resigned as attorney general under that kind of repeated pressure. Although the Justice Department had opened criminal investigations into several people on Trump’s political enemies list, only former FBI director and special counsel James Comey has been indicted by a grand jury, on charges of allegedly threatening the president’s life based on a photo of seashells on a beach spelling 86-47.

Obama’s suggestion has some resonance, though “codifying” a return to a quasi-independent Justice Department would require a........

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