Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, outlines how prosecutors can bring a legal reckoning for those who might receive a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. A founding board member of The Rule of Law Project, Roth says the new civic organization is intent on putting an end to the impunity of Trump and his administration.
Writing for The Guardian, he notes they are on the lookout for former federal prosecutors and FBI agents to probe allegations of corruption and abuse on the part of government officials and their accomplices that the present Justice Department has been overlooking.
As for Trump's pardoning power, Roth asks: “What if Trump pardons the culpable before he steps down?”
That would not necessarily protect his accomplices, he writes, because “the president’s pardon power does not extend to state crimes.” Conduct that could bring federal charges may also violate state law.
Roth contends that Trump has made his Justice Department a weapon to go after what he sees as political enemies and at the same time let his allies get away with alleged crimes. Those on Trump’s side have little reason to be afraid of his politicized prosecutors. He points to what he describes as the violence of ICE, large-scale official corruption and a habit of flouting the law.
The Rule of Law Project operates on the idea that a case is more likely to be taken up by a prosecutor if they are given a file that is mostly ready to go, Roth says, explaining the group’s function. The organization plans to do the legwork of talking to witnesses, amassing documents and analyzing them so cases can be put together while the evidence is still fresh.
The group cannot bring criminal charges itself, but its investigators will prepare cases for state and local prosecutors, or a future Justice Department willing to pursue them.
According to its launch announcement, the effort is led by Mark Blumberg, who spent nearly 30 years in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division investigating and prosecuting official misconduct.
Its work will include a detailed prosecution memo that sets out the elements of potential crimes and the evidence gathered to support them. Where state and local authorities have jurisdiction, the group says it will take those cases to them.
The investigators will also look into the use of excessive force, election interference, and the conditions in detention centers.
Those probes could be a route toward criminal accountability without waiting for Trump’s presidency to end. He accuses Trump of weaponizing the DOJ to pursue his perceived political enemies “while neglecting crimes by his allies, who have often enjoyed effective impunity.”
