From To Cc Subject: VANITY FAIR; "IT WOULD BE RIDICULOUSLY NAIVE NOT TO BE CONCERNED": TRUMP HAS POLITICIZED THE DOJ. HOW LONG CAN THE SDNY HOLD OUT? Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2019 15:45:56 +0000 Importance: Normal LINK TO ARTICLE: https://www.vanityfaircominews/2019/07/trump-has-politicized-the-doj-how-long-can-the-sdny- hold-out "IT WOULD BE RIDICULOUSLY NAIVE NOT TO BE CONCERNED": TRUMP HAS POLITICIZED THE DOJ. HOW LONG CAN THE SDNY HOLD OUT? The battles over the border and the census show that the West Wing is fully in control of Justice. "The fear is that Trump doesn't even need to say it out loud anymore." BY CHRIS SMITH Sally Yates tried to warn us. Way back in January 2017, at the end of the very first week of the Trump administration, the new president signed an executive order banning refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States. It was a blatantly political act, following months of Trump campaign promises, and it immediately provoked lawsuits challenging the order as religious discrimination. Yates, the acting attorney general, refused to defend the legally indefensible and was summarily fired. "The president is attempting to dismantle the rule of law, destroy the time-honored independence of the Justice Department, and undermine the career men and women who are devoted to seeking justice day in and day out," Yates wrote in a New York Times op-ed published in July 2017. Two Julys later, Trump's politicization of the DOJ is gaining new momentum and depth. The president's choice of William Barr as attorney general, and Barr's entirely predictable attempts to undercut the Mueller report, has been the highest-profile, highest-stakes move to weaponize the department for partisan purposes. But two fresh episodes demonstrate Trump's relentless push to subvert the DOJ, and how far-reaching the damage will be to the rule of law. First came Sarah Fabian, the senior attorney in the DOJ's Office o