Bush’s Attorney General Rebukes GOP for Targeting DOJ in WaPo Op-Ed: ‘An Attack on the Rule of Law’

AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

While many Republicans decry the weaponization of the Department of Justice, one Republican intimately familiar with the DOJ is standing up for it. Alberto Gonzalez, who served under former President George W. Bush as his attorney general, said that despite being indicted, former President Donald Trump is “not being singled out and treated unfairly.”

In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Gonzalez said that immediately following Trump’s third indictment, his second on federal charges, his concerns shifted from the “sobering” nature of the arraignment to the large number of people who stand by Trump and his lies about the 2020 election. Moreover, he said anyone attacking special prosecutor Jack Smith for handing down the indictment as “an attack on free speech” is “itself an attack on the rule of law,” noting that anyone else who would have incited the insurrection on January 6 would have been “arrested and prosecuted.”

Supporting Trump’s lies, Gonzalez stated, made him fear for the future of the rule of law:

I am among a number of jurists with experience at the highest levels of our government who grow more concerned as support for Trump mounts in direct proportion to the number of indictments against him. While Trump has a right to defend himself, his language and actions since 2016 have fueled a growing sense among many Americans that our justice system is rigged and biased against him and his supporters.

Sadly, this has led on the right to a growing distrust of and rage against the Justice Department. I recently heard from friends and former colleagues whom I trust and admire, people of common sense and strong values, who say that our justice system appears to be stacked against Trump and Republicans in general, that it favors liberals and Democrats, and that it serves the interests of the Democratic Party and not the Constitution. For example, they cite the department’s 2018 decision not to charge Hillary Clinton criminally for keeping classified documents on a private email server while she was secretary of state during [former President Barack Obama’s] administration.

I can understand the skepticism, but based on the known facts in each case, I do not share it.

Gonzalez also pointed out that Clinton and anyone else under investigation by the DOJ “often cooperate[s] with prosecutors to address potential wrongdoing. By all accounts, Trump has refused to cooperate.”

While Gonzalez concedes that the justice system is not perfect and miscarriages of justice are often not noticed until “after the fact,” he urged Americans not to blindly trust the justice system, but maybe don’t blindly trust “those who say it is unjust”:

I urge them to at least be open to considering that the problem may rest with Trump rather than the prosecution of him for his alleged crimes.