Republicans are weaponization wannabes

Republicans’ favorite word these days is “weaponization.” The “Biden regime’s weaponization of our system of justice is straight out of the Stalinist Russia horror show,” former president Donald Trump declared. "The weaponization of federal law enforcement,” according to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, “represents a mortal threat to a free society.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has promised to “hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”

House Republicans have created a judiciary subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), on “the weaponization of the federal government.” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has asserted that “the weaponization of the federal government against President Biden’s political rivals cannot go unchecked.”

In a reprise of their false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Republicans have kept Democratic “weaponization” on page one of their playbook, even though they have uncovered virtually no evidence of it. Moreover, in a classic example of the psychological concept of projection — attributing one’s own illicit motivations onto an opponent — Republicans turn out to be weaponization wannabes.

In May, Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate possible wrongdoing by FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials in their probe of alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in the 2016 election, released his long-awaited report. After acknowledging that the FBI’s preliminary investigation was appropriate, Durham sharply criticized the agency for “confirmation bias” and a “lack of analytical rigor” in authorizing a full-scale probe.

In their rush to prove Democratic weaponization, Republicans went well beyond his actual findings and results in court. Durham did obtain a guilty plea from an FBI lawyer who altered a document used in a request for renewal of a wiretap, but he was only sentenced to 12 months’ probation by a judge who concluded his action was not politically motivated. Durham’s only other two prosecutions, of a Clinton campaign attorney and a Russian analyst, for making false statements to the FBI, resulted in acquittals.

Durham did not allege a “Deep State” conspiracy to defeat Donald Trump. He found that Hillary Clinton committed “no provable criminal offense.” He did not charge any high-level FBI or intelligence agent with a crime or propose major changes in DOJ policies. The flaws in the FBI investigation highlighted by Durham, it’s also worth noting, had already been identified by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Most important, Durham confirmed that Attorney General Merrick Garland played no role in his investigation and “never asked me not to indict anyone.”

None of this deterred Judiciary Committee Chairman Jordan from proclaiming, “Seven years of attacking Trump is scary enough. But what’s more frightening is any one of us could be next.”

Last month, David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, who had been appointed by Attorney General Barr to conduct an investigation of Hunter Biden, negotiated a guilty plea to two misdemeanor charges of willfully evading federal income taxes and settled a felony charge of lying on an application for a gun license. Since the case has not yet been fully resolved, Weiss declined to testify to the House Judiciary Committee, but affirmed in a letter that he had been “granted ultimate authority over the matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges and for making decisions necessary to preserve the integrity of the prosecution.”

Nonetheless, Gov. DeSantis opined that “if Hunter were a Republican, he’d have been in jail years ago.” Speaker McCarthy shrugged off the multi-year probe conducted by a Trump-appointed prosecutor and made the GOP talking points comparison of the disposition of the Biden and Trump cases. Chairman Comer asserted that the plea deal came despite “growing evidence … that the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery.” Comer added that investigations of their “shady business dealings ... that risk our national security” will continue.

Thus far, it should be noted, Comer’s committee has found no evidence of corrupt behavior by President Biden, any involvement by Biden in his son’s business ventures or any new and credible information about Hunter Biden. Nor has Comer expressed any interest in investigating Trump family members who allegedly monetized their access to the former president.

Trump has left no doubt that if he returns to the White House he will weaponize the Department of Justice and every other branch of government. His former chief of staff John Kelly recalls that Trump “was always telling me we need to use the FBI and IRS to go after people.” White House Counsel Don McGahn deflected Trump’s requests to order the DOJ to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey. And in late 2020, Trump wanted Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to send a letter to officials in swing states alleging election fraud, requesting they delay certification of the results and “leave the rest to me & the R. Congressmen.”

So no one should be surprised that this month, as House Republicans introduced a resolution to impeach President Biden and censured Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.),Trump, who had earlier announced a ten-point plan to “dismantle the ‘Deep State,’” promised that if reelected, he would appoint a special prosecutor “to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, and the entire Biden crime family.”

If they succeed in dismantling our democratic institutions and sidelining or silencing their critics, these weaponized autocrats will not make America great, good or better.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Stuart Blumin) of “Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century.”