The perfect expression of the authoritarian approach to the rule of law comes from a former Peruvian president, Óscar Benavides: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.” The truly corrupted legal system combines impunity for the ruling class with punitive repression of political dissent.
When Jack Smith moved to dismiss his federal cases against Donald Trump, that clearly signaled Trump’s impunity. It was a representation of the adage that might makes right. He won, so he now enjoys a privilege from prosecution.
The selection of Kash Patel to lead the F.B.I. — a move that would require firing or forcing the resignation of Christopher Wray, the current F.B.I. director, well before the end of his 10-year term — demonstrates Trump’s commitment to repression and revenge.
Patel is the ultimate Trump loyalist. I strongly recommend reading Elaina Plott Calabro’s profile of Patel in The Atlantic. Much of her reporting was based on interviews with Patel’s former colleagues in the first Trump administration.
“Patel was dangerous,” Calabro wrote, summarizing their thoughts, “not because of a certain plan he would be poised to carry out if given control of the C.I.A. or F.B.I., but because he appeared to have no plan at all — his priorities today always subject to a mercurial president’s wishes tomorrow.”
Patel is so absurdly devoted to Trump that he wrote a children’s book about Trump, called “The Plot Against the King,” in which he describes the Russia investigation as a plot by “Hillary Queenton” against “King Donald.”
In December 2023, he told Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon, “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”
“We’re going to come after you,” he continued, “whether it’s criminally or civilly. We’ll figure that out.”
To be clear, this isn’t conventional tough-on-crime language. He’s not telling criminals that he’s coming after them. Instead, he’s clearly targeting people who blocked Trump’s illegal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Biden did not rig a presidential election. Trump lost.
The danger to the rule of law is magnified by the circumstances. Wray is a Trump appointee, and his term doesn’t end until 2027. The only reason to replace him is to find someone who is more responsive to Trump.
Trump has clearly learned the lessons of his first term. When he nominates establishment Republicans, they’ll often (but not always) resist his worst and most unconstitutional impulses. Even Bill Barr, his second hand-picked attorney general, drew the line when Trump tried to steal the 2020 election.
But now he’s nominating people who possess few, if any, moral lines at all. The danger of Patel isn’t primarily his ideology; it’s his loyalty. He is, as Calabro wrote, “the man who will do anything for Donald Trump.”
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