DOJ juggles prosecuting Trump with its duty to safeguard the office of the presidency
There’s some cognitive dissonance at the Justice Department, which is trying to put Trump behind bars while fulfilling its mission to defend the office from civil suits.

In a courthouse in Florida, federal prosecutors are trying to put Donald Trump in jail. But in Washington, D.C., a different wing of the Justice Department is trying to shield him from being forced to testify under oath in a long-running lawsuit.

Welcome to the bizarro-world reality facing Attorney General Merrick Garland, the first DOJ leader balancing the prosecution of a former president with the department’s longstanding mission to protect the presidency itself. DOJ has often taken absolutist positions against efforts to sue current and former presidents for their actions on the job — but never before have they been prosecuting one of those ex-presidents at the same time.

“The Justice Department has the Herculean task of trying to put an ethical rope through a needle,” said Gene Rossi, a former federal prosecutor and civil litigator. “At best, there is an apparent conflict for DOJ, which has to rightly defend constitutional principles to protect the former president and the office he once held, while striving mightily to prosecute him for alleged crimes. This balancing act is legal schizophrenia.”