Leubsdorf: Criticisms of Biden false

“Joe Biden has weaponized law enforcement to interfere in our elections,” Trump told an audience soon after his indictment for improper possession of classified documents. “I’m being indicted for you.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s main GOP challenger, agreed. “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” he wrote on Twitter.

(To be fair, there are exceptions. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie rejected the weaponization allegation, noting that, in Trump’s indictment, “This evidence was pretty damning.”)

Trump often sought to use his Justice Department for political purposes.

He attacked his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of reputed ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russians — and for resisting White House efforts to interfere.

Two top former White House officials, Donald McGahn and John Kelly, said Trump wanted the Justice Department to investigate his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, and former FBI officials James Comey and Andrew McCabe, both of whom he ousted.

Trump’s second attorney general, William Barr, held up release of Mueller’s report and issued a statement suggesting its conclusions were less damning than they were. He also acceded to Trump’s demands to investigate the Russia investigators by naming U.S. attorney John Durham to do so. Later, Barr separated himself from Trump, rejecting his post-election assertions of widespread fraud and resigning.

Meanwhile, Trump vowed that, if elected next year, he will seek to curb the Justice Department’s independence from the White House.

“I will appoint a real special ‘prosecutor’ to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the USA, Joe Biden, the entire Biden crime family, & all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders, & country itself!” Trump posted on Truth Social, claiming authority he wouldn’t have.

“Republicans in Congress should defund the DOJ and FBI until they come to their senses,” he wrote another time. “The Democrats have totally weaponized law enforcement in our country.”

By contrast, the Biden administration set a very different course by reaffirming the department’s prior independence. The president left decisions on investigating Trump and his son, Hunter Biden, to his attorney general, former federal appeals judge Merrick Garland.

Garland, in turn, left the Hunter Biden investigation with the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, and named special counsels to examine allegations of improper possession of classified documents by Trump, Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.

President Biden has declined to comment on either the charges against Trump or his son’s plea bargain with prosecutors.

To some extent, GOP allegations probably represent political calculations about the danger of crossing Trump because of his popularity among Republican voters. If anything, the indictments have strengthened his standing with them.

More serious is the degree to which they believe their own false statements.