Michael J. Stern

Opinion columnist

When I retired from the Department of Justice, shortly before the start of the 2016 presidential campaign, I found myself obsessively watching and reading the news. In an effort to reduce my chances of a stroke, I channeled my frustration with all things Trump into writing political op-eds. Then I sent them to family, friends and many of the federal prosecutors I’m still in touch with in several U.S. attorney’s offices.

And from those prosecutors who get my articles, I’ve received nothing but an unabashed two thumbs-up. Until now.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has been pressuring the Department of Justice to prosecute his political opponents and the law enforcement team responsible for initiating the Russia investigation. Attorney General Jeff Sessions resisted. But when Trump installed William Barr as the head of federal law enforcement, Trump had a strategy in mind. With a presidential twist of the arm, Barr raised a white flag before the first tendon snapped.

Trump wants investigators to fear him

So began the Justice Department’s all-out offensive to ­“investigate the investigators.” In its wake, I’ve started receiving emails from federal prosecutors that go something like this: “Please keep sending me your articles, but don’t send them to my office email anymore.”

At first, I was surprised that my former colleagues would have any concern about receiving an article published in a mainstream newspaper. But over the past two years, the president has publicly buried government employees who investigated criminal activity connected to him or his campaign. FBI Director James Comey, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page all worked on the investigation that documented Russian election interference designed to help Trump take the White House. All were fired or forced from their jobs.

Add to that list the president’s statement that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should be jailed for appointing special counsel Robert Mueller and Trump’s order directing White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. And just last week, in response to word that Mueller is scheduled to testify before Congress this month, the president falsely accused the former special counsel of destroying text messages between Strzok and Page and added, “That’s illegal. That’s a crime.”

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The president’s public campaign to turn the tables on the investigators is not limited to tyrannical retribution. It is designed to make prosecutors and agents second-guess every move they make in future investigations, for fear of becoming a target of the agency that employs them.

It’s designed to make them think: If I seek a wiretap on a Trump associate who is actively involved in criminal activities, will I end up spending the rest of my career prosecuting illegal reentry cases? Or, will DOJ assign someone to look through every text on my work phone, like they did to Strzok and Page? What will they do with the embarrassing personal texts they find?

Trump gets results with pressure and fear

Former FBI legal counsel Jim Baker said recently that the Trump-Barr attack on law enforcement will have a “chilling effect” on investigators who will worry that by investigating Russia’s interference in our elections, they could end up “being investigated themselves.”

I originally ended this piece with the comforting thought that Trump’s efforts will have no effect on those who inherit the duty of investigating corruption in the administration for which they work. But days passed, and I could not get myself to submit it for publication.

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While I continue to have unfailing admiration and respect for the agents and prosecutors who dedicate themselves to the often thankless work of righting wrongs and keeping us safe, they are human. For all of Trump’s shortcomings, his superpower is influencing people through pressure, and desire, and fear. If the moral decomposition of Barr, Rudy Giuliani and retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly has taught us anything, it is that.

I don’t know Sarah Fabian. Yet I’m willing to bet that when she joined the Justice Department’s legal team, she never imagined she would be the subject of a viral video in which she defended DOJ’s position that it is entitled to withhold basic sanitary supplies, like a toothbrush and soap, from children in detention camps who are sleeping on concrete floors with foil blankets.

Paralysis and fizzled investigations

There wasn’t a gun to Fabian’s head at last month’s court hearing. But as she squirmed under the inquisition light of the judges’ pointed questions, I could see DOJ’s long arm and a shadow of the threat that no doubt accompanied her into court that morning.

Trump and his eager henchman Barr have made clear that agents and prosecutors who investigate the president, his administration or his campaign are at risk of losing their jobs, their reputations and even their freedom.

It isn’t necessary for Trump to expressly prohibit investigations he wants stymied. As the president’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress, Trump expresses the subtext of his illicit directives in code. It so happens that agents and prosecutors, who have experience investigating the illegal activity of mob bosses, are well-versed in translating criminal code.

For law enforcement agents and prosecutors, second-guessing means lost opportunities and investigations that fizzle when they should spark. For Donald Trump, investigative palsy is not an unfortunate side effect of the most recent iteration of his DOJ takeover. Fear, and the paralysis that follows, is the point.

Michael J. Stern, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, was a federal prosecutor for 25 years in Detroit and Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelJStern1