Chill out

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Election Day is exactly one week away today. Democrats are loving the look of the polls and preparing for the possibility of taking control of Congress.

And they’re already talking about investigations that would follow.

WORLD commentator Daniel Suhr wonders when the lawfare tit-for-tat will end—if ever.

DANIEL SUHR: It was the most memorable chant of every Trump rally in 2016:

AUDIO — TRUMP RALLY: “Lock her up! Lock her up!”

The her, of course, was Hillary Clinton. The alleged crime was mishandling classified documents.

But when Trump came into office, a remarkable thing happened. His Department of Justice never pressed charges. He didn’t lock her up.

Things took a different turn during the Biden administration. District attorneys in Manhattan and Fulton County Georgia went after Trump. The FBI searched Mar-a-Lago for classified documents.

There were other controversies. An FBI memo about traditional Catholics. FACE Act prosecutions of pro-lifers.

After Trump won a second term, his administration pursued investigations and prosecutions of political opponents.

I fear this cycle of revenge and recrimination is going to get worse before it gets better.

Consider what Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin said recently at the University of Chicago. She was asked what Democrats should do if they win control of Congress.

SLOTKIN: But you can’t just make that your whole personality. Right, so you have to pick signature cases, and you have to go after people and projects that are just super egregious.

She went on to say Democrats should target people around Trump who, in her words, enabled him. And when the interviewer returned to that subject, she spelled out what she hoped to accomplish.

SLOTKIN: I want young people coming out of school to say, ’Should I go work for the Trump administration?’ That sounds fun. I might get an opportunity. I want them to be like, ’Lord, that might be buying myself a ton of problems that I don’t want, and so let me avoid participating in that.’ I want that deterrence message sent.

Slotkin now says she meant only people who break the law. But that’s not what she said at the University of Chicago. You just heard that. She wanted young people to worry about the consequences of working for Trump. That was the point of her warning.

And now Democrats are discussing investigations of major corporations that worked with this administration.

“Democrats Are Coming for the CEOs,” The Wall Street Journal warned in an editorial yesterday. The Washington Post reports that executives are already preparing for a reckoning if Democrats win control of Congress.

There may be reasons to investigate. Examples include the awarding of government contracts, the granting of exemptions from tariffs, and any kind of political favoritism. The congressional prerogative is oversight. I get that.

But it’s not illegal for a young staffer to accept a White House job or a CEO to deal with the sitting president.

Yes, this is politics, not beanbag, to quote the old saw. And, yes, Caesar’s wife must be above reproach, to invoke another aphorism.

But we have to reject Soviet-style tactics: You show me the man, I’ll find the crime.

The Constitution wisely bans bills of attainder like that. Democrats need to heed that wisdom now.

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Suhr.

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