Letters: Protecting Hillary Clinton marks a new low

In 1973, Attorney General Elliott Richardson and Assistant Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than obey President Richard Nixon’s demand that they fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. They both acted in order to protect the integrity of the department. Solicitor General Robert Bork agreed to fire Cox and in doing so created a storm that ended in Nixon’s resignation.

Fast forward to 2016. During a criminal investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of highly classified information, President Obama announced that he thought she wouldn't be charged because she didn’t mean to do it. Attorney General Loretta Lynch heard this, and after a meeting on the tarmac with former President Bill Clinton, she apparently got the message. As did FBI Director James Comey. Neither resigned to protect the integrity of their departments.

With these acts, the most recent bit of hope and change was put into place. The Justice Department has become a political operation.

This will not be lost on future presidents, Democrat or Republican. Enemies of the president can expect to be tormented, or audited by the IRS, or subjected to the power of the federal government. Party elites can expect to be provided protective cover. The laws presidents swear to protect will effectively become a buffet: “I think I’ll have the peas but not the carrots.”

What distinguished the United States from third-world countries was the certainty that the civil servants in the Justice Department were fiercely independent of politics. Not so much anymore. It’s a change we will direly regret someday.