PREDATORY PROSECUTORS:

What jumps out regarding all these promises to investigate is that no crime has been identified—only a target of prosecution, of whom it is simply assumed that he has committed crimes. But this manner of criminal jurisprudence is totally contrary to the spirit of American law, a bedrock principle of which is the assumption of innocence, both for the accused, but even more importantly, for people who have not been accused. Prosecutors running around pledging to investigate people they consider political enemies embody the apothegm of Stalin’s top secret policeman Lavrenty Beria, who famously said, “Show me the man, and I will find you the crime.” . . .

That is to say, prosecutors are going back to look at Trump’s historical finances, which were not worthy of attention before he became their political enemy. If he had never run for office, nobody would have ever bothered investigating his loans or the accounting procedures of his family business with the stated intention of putting him in jail.

This is the sort of practice that is associated with dictatorships, Third-world countries, and failed states, all of which the United States is increasingly resembling. Free societies do not allow prosecutors to operate as predators.

So punish them, as an example to others.