How to Hold Trump Accountable
A torrent of new revelations is filling in the picture of how Donald Trump used, and abused, his authority as president. But the disclosures may serve only to underscore how little remains known about all the ways in which Trump barreled through traditional limits on the exercise of presidential power—and highlight the urgency of developing a more comprehensive accounting before the 2024 election, when he may seek to regain those powers.
The steady flow of discoveries over the past few weeks has been damning. Emails show how both Trump and his White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows pressured the Justice Department to support the former president’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020. A previously unheard tape captures how Rudolph Giuliani, as Trump’s attorney, explicitly pressured Ukraine to manufacture an investigation against Joe Biden—the issue that prompted the former president’s first impeachment. Even more ominous has been the disclosure that the Justice Department under Trump subpoenaed communications records of journalists, Democratic members and staffers in the House of Representatives, and even Trump’s own White House counsel, all without their knowledge.
The revelation of that sweeping surveillance, in particular, has triggered a uniform reaction among
