The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion The firing of Peter Strzok sends an ominous signal about the rule of law

August 13, 2018 at 4:08 p.m. EDT
Peter Strzok on July 12, testifying in front of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

On Monday, the FBI announced that embattled FBI agent Peter Strzok had been fired over his careless series of anti-Trump text messages. In dismissing Strzok, FBI Deputy Director David L. Bowdich overruled the internal disciplinary arm of the FBI, which had recommended a much lesser punishment: demotion and a 60-day suspension.

There is no way to be certain whether Bowdich’s intervention and his decision to dismiss Strzok was the right call. Everyone agrees Strzok should have exercised better judgment, and that sending politically charged text messages while engaged in an investigation where objectivity and impartiality were paramount was dumb. It should be noted, however, that there is no public evidence to suggest that Strzok’s personal political persuasions affected his work. And Strzok’s career at the FBI was otherwise an exemplary one; he spent 22 years keeping the United States safe from threats, including Russian espionage.

Unfortunately, Strzok’s firing is a much bigger deal than text messages or one FBI agent’s career. This is the latest warning sign that President Trump is politicizing the U.S. rule of law beyond repair.

One of the clearest dividing lines between authoritarian regimes and democratic republics is the apolitical functioning of rule of law. The power of dictatorship is not just the power to protect the guilty and prosecute the innocent. It is also the power to punish your political rivals because they are your political rivals. And in a more banal way, it is also the power to get rid of law enforcement officials who don’t march in lockstep with the political vision of the leader.

The politicization of rule of law is, therefore, a serious threat to democracy. I’ve interviewed authoritarian heads of state in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and in Southeast Asia. Off the record, they’ll admit that they deliberately politicized rule of law in order to crush dissent and remove constraints on their power. To achieve that goal, they usually launch two parallel campaigns. First, create the public perception that rule of law is already highly politicized against the leader in power. Second, use that pretext to much more aggressively politicize rule of law against the leader’s political opponents.

Building public trust in the rule of law as an impartial and apolitical institution can take decades, or even centuries. But that precious public trust can be torn to shreds in a matter of months. And once that happens, depoliticizing the rule of law is nearly impossible.

When Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was facing a corruption investigation in 2013 and 2014, he called it a “witch hunt” after casting himself as a victim of the “deep state.” He used that justification to fire prosecutors and to purge judges and law enforcement officers who challenged him. He got away with it. The investigation disappeared.

In the process, Erdogan transformed Turkey from a flawed semi-democracy into an authoritarian regime. Erdogan’s opponents now (rightly) see Turkey’s justice system as a weapon being wielded against them by a despot. His supporters will (rightly) worry that, should Erdogan lose power, the rule of law could be used as a weapon against them by his successor. That poisonous perception will almost certainly endure for decades in Turkey.

Thankfully, the United States is not Turkey. But the country is starting down Turkey’s perilous path. Trump is deliberately and falsely creating the perception among his supporters that he (and they) are the victims of a justice system that exists to target the president and his political allies. And, like Erdogan, he’s using that perception as a pretext to lash out at institutions and individuals who underpin the rule of law in the United States.

Since becoming president, Trump has attacked the FBI, the nation’s top law enforcement agency, 88 separate times on Twitter. Twenty-one of those tweets specifically attacked Peter Strzok, calling him a “sick loser” who was “incompetent and corrupt.” Trump also went after Strzok countless times during campaign rallies and in public remarks.

For eight months, the president of the United States has been directing an unprecedented amount of political venom and vitriol at a single FBI agent. That agent has now been fired in a manner inconsistent with the recommendation of an independent disciplinary arm of the FBI. And because of those two facts, it is impossible not to wonder whether Strzok’s firing was politically motivated, or became more likely because of Trump’s political attacks — something that Americans should never have to wonder about with law enforcement decisions.

We will likely never know whether Strzok was fired because of political calculations or pressure from the White House. It is plausible, though. But we already have clear evidence — from his calls for jailing of his opponents to his use of pardons for political allies — that Trump sees the rule of law through a purely political lens and that he is trying to bend it to his will. Whether he succeeds or not, his ongoing efforts to politicize the rule of law have already injected a dangerous toxin into America’s political bloodstream. I fear any eventual antidote will take years or decades to expel the venom.