Trump Just Declared Himself the Sheriff of America
“I’m actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country,” he said.
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s already given himself a long list of over-the-top superlatives and fancy titles, like
“King of Israel” and “the second coming of God” and even “
very stable genius.”
Now he's added one more to the pile: America’s “chief law enforcement officer.”
Doubling down on his assault on America’s legal system, Trump declared Tuesday that he has every right to protect his friends and punish his enemies using the country’s federal criminal procedures because he’s technically America’s top cop — or so he said.
Any reluctance on his part to step in and oversee who gets prosecuted for crimes, and who doesn’t, is purely a matter of discretion on his part.
“I’m allowed to be totally involved,” Trump told reporters Tuesday. “I’m actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country, but I’ve chosen not to be involved.”
That may sound like just another dose of Trumpian megalomania. But his new self-granted title certainly describes the way the president's been acting lately. Trump’s been on a collision course with America’s traditionally independent judicial system that’s escalated wildly since the Senate acquitted him in the impeachment trial earlier this month.
Since then, Trump’s been on a spree. On Tuesday,
he handed out 11 pardons and commutations, including a handful of political allies and high-profile officials convicted of corruption. He’s railed against the treatment of his decades-old buddy and former political advisor Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress during the Russia investigations to protect Trump. The president appeared to
tweet instructions on Stone’s criminal case to his own attorney general and tweeted out venomous attacks on the judge and jury forewoman involved in the case.
More:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxezk9/trump-just-declared-himself-the-sheriff-of-america