As a former federal prosecutor, I know that prosecutors should be guided by the facts. But in his determination to hound George Soros, Donald Trump wants prosecutors to become agents of his personal vendetta, facts be damned. That is the conclusion to be drawn from the instructions issued by one of Trump’s senior justice department officials to a group of US attorney’s offices across the country, telling them to investigate Soros’s foundation.
This is the latest step in Trump’s implementation of the autocrat’s handbook, with the aim of chipping away at the checks and balances on presidential authority. Having already attacked judges, lawyers, media companies and universities, Trump now sets his sights on civil society. Soros, a longtime and extraordinarily generous funder of progressive causes around the world including in the United States, is Target Number 1. Trump shares this fixation with the likes of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, Europe’s most prominent autocrat, who for years has used Soros as a scapegoat for widespread and growing dislike of his corrupt, self-serving rule.
