Trump Defunds the Police

 

By David K. Shipler 

            There are several ways to curb law enforcement. One is to cut off funding literally, as a minority of Black Lives Matter protesters urged. Another is to redirect some money from uniformed officers to social workers and mental health counselors, which is what many demonstrators meant by “defund the police.” Still another is to release convicted violent assailants of police officers. Or to ignore specific laws; declare no intention to enforce them; and to investigate, fire, and intimidate prosecutors and policing authorities who combat certain crimes.

            President Trump is doing all of those things except, of course, moving money to mental health services. He and his consigliere, Elon Musk, have frozen spending broadly enough to impede law enforcement. Trump has fired most of the inspectors-general who investigate waste, fraud, and abuse. He has frozen hiring at the IRS and discussed laying off 9,000 employees to undercut tax enforcement. He has pardoned men found guilty of violently attacking police officers on January 6. He has removed veteran specialists from counter-terrorism work in the Justice Department, robbing the country of expertise in a critical area of national security.

            He has announced that the law prohibiting Americans from bribing foreign officials to get contracts abroad will no longer be enforced. He has defied the congressional statute, unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court, that bans Chinese-owned TikTok and has promised no prosecutions of companies that continue to distribute the prohibited platform.

            He has stymied three agencies that enforce laws protecting workers and customers of banks and credit card companies by shutting down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and illegally firing the Democratic-appointed chair of the National Labor Relations Board and two of three Democrats on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  

He has subordinated the Justice Department to his political and personal vendettas by firing prosecutors who worked on cases against him and his supporters among the Jan. 6 rioters. This presidential invasion of Justice and the FBI sweeps aside a half century of ethical standards.

Trump’s underlings have sent a chill through federal law enforcement by compiling dossiers on some 5,000 FBI agents and staff who investigated those cases, and who seem likely be fired as well. Lists have been drawn up of 3,600 new FBI agents and staff, already vetted and trained but still on probation and thus easy to dismiss.

            Federal prosecutors have been ordered to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, not for lack of evidence, the acting deputy attorney general makes clear, but as a quid pro quo for the mayor’s cooperation with Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. Adams responded to that good news by allowing ICE agents into the city’s Riker’s Island detention center, evading a local law barring such access.

            That case is particularly significant on three counts. First, Adams—a Democrat and former police officer—paid a friendly visit to Trump in Florida for conversations on various topics, including immigration. Trump obviously sees him as an ally, indicating how blatantly this administration intends to convert criminal justice into a tool of presidential power, dispensing with the rule of law.

 Second, the charges are to be dismissed “without prejudice,” a legal term meaning they could be reinstated later. That leaves Adam twisting in the wind, vulnerable to Justice Department retribution if he is insufficiently compliant with Trump’s wishes.

Third, the US Attorney for the district, Danielle R. Sassoon, who refused the order to dismiss the case and resigned in protest, has sterling conservative credentials. A graduate of Yale Law School, she clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a towering figure on the right, and she is a member of the conservative Federalist Society.

            Her principled stance raises a question of whether the mainstream establishment on the right who want to conserve the constitutional system will ever reach a critical mass of alarm sufficient to block the Trumpists. It seems unlikely, given Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, which has marginalized and threatened anyone who speaks up.

            Meanwhile, lawlessness prevails at the top. No obvious checks exist on Musk’s conflicts of interest as he and his young computer techs pervade agencies that award and oversee billiions in government contracts with his companies. Nothing guarantees that he won’t have access to privileged information on competitive bids, for example, or that he won’t be favored by pro-Trump, highly politicized officials who fear the president’s disfavor. Does anyone seriously imagine Musk or any other Trump buddy being prosecuted for corruption that might occur? Does anyone seriously imagine FBI agents or prosecutors risking their jobs to investigate Trump allies?

            The Trump-Musk rhetoric notwithstanding, the longterm goal of mass firings seems less to cut government spending (employees’ salaries make up only 5 to 6 percent of the budget) than to open space for an influx of highly ideological officials to politicize agencies that have been traditionally professional and nonpartisan.

            Creating vacuums in law enforcement is a key element of the strategy. As they are filled, even partially, they stand to be truly weaponized, reversing Trump’s claim that they already were, against him. Yes, neutral law enforcement agencies tend to be biased—against criminals, notes Jason Stanley of Yale, author of Erasing History.

            As every autocrat knows, you can’t rule without having control over the policing apparatus, plus the military and the intelligence gatherers. Trump made war on those three institutions in his first term. Now he is moving to co-opt them.