By Tim Hains
John Yoo, a former Bush administration DOJ official and former legal clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, comments on the potential long-term impacts of Donald Trump's legal battles on the American legal system during an event this week at Notre Dame University.
Yoo argues that what Donald Trump did, with regard to the disputed 2020 election results and the January 6 riot, and the response to his actions have both been legally unprecedented.
"I see the use of the law for what is commonly called 'Lawfare.' The use of the law to achieve political goals. We can't pretend the law has no political goals, a lot of litigation, and the law has politics to it. Look at the overturning of Roe v. Wade. That was a political objective executed through the use of the law. Look at the legalization of gay marriage on the other side," he said. "What worries me about the use of prosecutions in particular is trying to oust from public life... In the past, we never prosecuted former presidents before. I'm not saying former presidents never did anything worth prosecuting... If you want to indict people for being bad characters as president, I'm sure we could have kept a whole suite at the DOJ busy."