Let’s do a little pretending. You are living in East Germany in 1960. The Stasi, the repressive secret police, have arrested you. As you are languishing in prison, the state prosecutor asks you to cough up information that will be damaging to a certain individual that the state wishes to condemn. The prosecutor’s demand is backed up with a threat. If you don’t compose the incriminating information he seeks, you will spend the next 40 years behind bars and the state will go after your spouse, your children, and your best friend Fido. Everyone you love will be destroyed.

Ah, but you say, “This is America in 2019. That could never happen here. Aren’t we lucky to be living in the land of the free and home of the brave?” Well, guess what? This used to be the land of the free. Thanks to the politicized justice system that was set in motion more than 20 years ago and reinforced during eight fateful years of the Obama administration, the quaint notion that we benefit from due process has evaporated, along with Cinderella’s ball gown and fancy coach. A former federal prosecutor by the name of Sidney Powell has blown the whistle. If you watched the January 27th episode of “Life, Liberty and Levin” on the Fox channel, you heard Ms. Powell dispel the illusion that our justice system is fair and impartial.

Powell, author of Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice, described a system consisting of out-of-control prosecutors who will do anything to get a conviction. She accused the Justice Department of a broad range of offenses. Some of those include:

• False charges brought by overzealous prosecutor Andrew Weissmann (Robert Mueller’s right-hand man) in the case against leading accounting firm Arthur Andersen. Although the conviction was subsequently reversed unanimously by the Supreme Court, Andersen was completely destroyed, its 85,000 employees lost their jobs, and the assets of untold investors were wiped out. Weissmann was promoted by the DoJ.

• Destruction of the lives of four Merrill Lynch executives. Before they could appeal their fake convictions, they were sent to prison with the toughest criminals in the country. “They did the worst things they could possibly do to these men,” says Powell. The defendants were eventually exonerated on appeal, but it was only after one of them served eight months in solitary confinement.

• Frequent failure by the DoJ to disclose evidence favorable to defendants as required by law.

• Using the phony Steele dossier, the DoJ and FBI unlawfully obtained FISA warrants for the surveillance of the Trump election campaign. The dossier was then used to justify creation of a special counsel to investigate alleged Trump-Russia collusion. After two years, that investigation is nothing more than a witch-hunt against Trump supporters.

• Leaking at the top levels of the FBI and DoJ in the midst of criminal investigations.

• Unwillingness of federal judges to discipline the DoJ for its transgressions.

As Mark Levin has suggested, the Deep State -- led by Obama holdovers in the justice system -- is using the Mueller investigation as a “silent coup” to unseat President Trump. “Neither Mr. Mueller nor Andrew Weissmann are interested in the truth whatsoever,” says Powell. “They’re only interested in whatever they can generate to create a criminal offense” against associates of the president. The special counsel’s attempt to invalidate a legitimate presidential election is an example of the weaponization of the DoJ in service of political objectives. Mueller coerces witnesses to “compose” evidence capable of bringing down the president. General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Jerome Corsi, and others refused to compose and were charged with perjury. Manafort is in solitary confinement after his questionable conviction. There is a name for this: blackmail. Goodbye USA, hello Stasi. If you refuse to lie for us, we will destroy you and your family.

The latest target in Mueller’s sights is Trump associate Roger Stone. Stone’s indictment is described by former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova as a “vindictive prosecution.” “It serves no law enforcement purpose,” says diGenova, “It’s disgraceful.” What is being done to these Trump supporters could just as easily happen to you or me. It’s the sort of thing that we would expect in North Korea. If our justice system were functioning as it should, Mueller himself would be charged with blackmail and subornation of perjury -- persuading a witness to make a false oath. Instead, the lives of uncooperative witnesses are being destroyed when they are charged with an arbitrary process crime by the special counsel. The FBI has been complicit in Mueller’s efforts, as demonstrated by the KGB-style nighttime raids on the homes of Manafort and Stone.

A venal gang of Obama alumni is getting away with the perversion of American justice. What a cast of crooked characters! At the FBI, we have former directors James Comey and Robert Mueller, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page. At the DOJ: Rod Rosenstein, Andrew Weissmann, Sally Yates, and Bruce Ohr. From the Obama administration: Hillary Clinton, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, John Brennan, and Barack Obama himself. The specifics of their illegal activities are described in detail by Greg Jarrett in The Russia Hoax.

The civil rights of innocent individuals are being violated for no reason other than their political views. Do you think William Barr, our new attorney general, will do something to stop it? Let’s hope he is more effective than his predecessor. Unless the Mueller investigation is terminated and we address the real scandal in our government -- corruption at the top levels of the DoJ and FBI -- we can kiss the American system of justice goodbye.

Ed Brodow is a political commentator, negotiation expert, and author of seven books including his latest, Tyranny of the Minority: How the Left is Destroying America.