Why Trump was and is so dangerous to Democracy  

Last week, Geoffrey Berman, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, released his book detailing his experience being fired by Donald Trump for doing what U.S. attorneys are supposed to do — enforce the law. Berman’s treatment was part of a broader pattern of Trump abusing his power to remove executive branch employees. Congress can – and must – protect against this abuse. Otherwise, democracy itself is at risk.

 At the time of Berman’s firing in June 2020, his office had numerous investigations pending into Trump’s affairs and associates, including Rudy Giuliani and Lev Parnas; money laundering at Deutsche Bank (one of Trump’s biggest lenders) and Turkey’s state-run Halkbank (which Trump had discussed with President Erdogan); illegal use of money by the president’s inauguration committee; and, most notably, payoffs from Trump’s private attorney Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels on Trump’s behalf.

Berman also had refused to prosecute Trump’s political opponents, including former Secretary of State John Kerry. Berman alleges that after his office indicted Cohen for the payoffs and Republican Rep. Chris Collins for insider trading, Justice Department lawyers told him, “It's time for you guys to even things out and indict a Democrat before the midterm election."

When Berman refused, he was fired. And he wasn’t the only executive branch official Trump dismissed to hinder criminal investigations of himself and those around him and to encourage investigations of his political enemies. Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other top law enforcement officers, and repeatedly threatened to fire others such as Special Counsel Robert Mueller, simply for doing their jobs.