'The worst thing' that tops 'long list' of Trump’s misdeeds: ex-prosecutor

President Donald Trump's misdeeds since returning to the White House have turned into a "long list," but as one former federal prosecutor argued for The Hill, "the worst thing" that he has done is clear.

James D. Zirin previously served as a prosecutor for the Southern District of New York and now regularly publishes legal analysis and op-eds for The Hill. In his latest piece from Tuesday, Zirin relayed the story of a "right-leaning" colleague asking him recently, "what is the worst thing Trump has done since he took office?" The "competition" for that ignoble honor, he explained, was fierce

"Is it the rampant corruption in Washington, using the criminal justice system for revenge on personal and political enemies?" he suggested. "Is it pressuring law firms, universities and media companies to achieve political ends? Barring press from the White House because he doesn’t like what they report? Weakening our alliances? Warring with science and the arts? The fiasco in Iran and the global exposure of our military’s weaknesses? Then there’s the self-valorizing East Wing ballroom or the Arc de Trump. Is it a pass to the dangers of AI, the outrageous lies or his repeated savaging of the three Supreme Court justices he appointed because he doesn’t like their decisions? Take your pick; it’s a long list."

Amid all of those choices, however, Zirin argued that, to him, "the coup de grâce" among Trump's worst, most corrupt second-term misdeeds was his "repeated undermining of judicial independence, trashing the three justices he himself appointed, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett," a stance he conceded was informed by his own background as an attorney and his reverence for the legal system.

"When Trump lost the tariff case in the Supreme Court, he called Justices Gorsuch and Barrett’s votes an 'embarrassment to their families,' labeled majority conservatives voting with the liberal minority 'disloyal, unpatriotic' and 'fools and lapdogs,'alleged without proof that the court was 'swayed by foreign interests,' and said he was 'ashamed' of the justices he appointed lacking the courage to do right," Zirin detailed to back up his argument. "His assault smacked of his mentor Roy Cohn’s playbook. In Cohn’s Bronx back room 'favor bank' ethos, if a politician was responsible for appointing a judge, that judge owed allegiance not to the law, but to the corrupt political system that gave him the gavel."

He added: "And when he lost the mail ballot case, Trump repeated his rubbishing of the justices: 'These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves,' he wrote in a social media post. Trump’s actions are those of a sore loser and a bully, and many Americans are prepared to live with that. Bullies thrive on weakness, and Alexander Hamilton thought the judiciary to be the weakest branch of government, having no sword and no purse."