Attorney and author James D. Zirin is blasting the “new malignant normal in the administration of justice” that he says President Donald Trump has brought to America.

Zirin, a former SDNY federal prosecutor who wrote a book on Trump’s lawsuits, in an opinion piece at The Hill, walked through the past year of the president’s tenure.

Examining Trump’s “sorry record,” Zirin includes the “drip feed disclosure of Epstein files, ordered to be produced on Nov. 19,” and notes: “we are told there are 5.2 million pages to go.”

“Extrajudicial killings on the high seas,” he continues, “outsized assertions of executive power, resignations of U.S. attorneys over questionable prosecutions, threats to annex Greenland because Trump is miffed that Norway denied him the Nobel Peace Prize. And hovering over it all investigations and prosecutions of political enemies.”

Zirin pointed to a video made by six Democrats, “directly quoting the Uniform Code of Military Justice about the military’s responsibility to reject illegal orders.”

READ MORE: Trump Shifts Minnesota Messaging After Second Deadly Shooting Sparks Backlash

“Their message,” he noted, “came straight out of the 1945-46 Nuremberg trials of 22 Nazi leaders accused, among other things, of ‘crimes against humanity’ where the international court ruled that the ‘I was only following orders’ defense would not wash.”

The president, Zirin wrote, “blasted the video, calling it ‘SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!’ He added: ‘Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.’ Imagine! Legislators who disagree with Trump executed by lethal injection.”

After detailing the efforts Trump administration officials took to respond to the video, including those from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Zirin reminded readers: “Politicized prosecutions have no place in America; yet they are too much with us. Weaponized prosecutions undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and only lend succor to the cynic. Using prosecution to silence critics is a tactic common to authoritarian regimes.”

Zirin concludes, “helicoptering over it all, we have the politicized investigation of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement shooting in Minneapolis of Renée Good, killed in her confrontation with ICE officers, which has not led to an investigation of the officer who was the shooter, but an FBI inquiry into Good’s widow.”

“Attorney General Todd Blanche said that ‘there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation’ into the ICE agent. How about the videotape evidence showing that Good was veering her car away from the ICE agent?”

Summing it up, Zirin notes that he “lived through the Watergate era,” and, apparently by comparison, that “Nixon’s shenanigans appear as normal as apple pie.”

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An Iowa state lawmaker has become the second Republican candidate seeking major office to quit their campaign on Monday. The exit comes amid a broader pattern of GOP departures, even as candidates from both parties have begun dropping out of competitive races.

“After careful consideration and discussion with my family, I have made the difficult but clear decision to suspend my campaign for Congress,” State Representative Shannon Lundgren announced.

A self-described “America First Wife, Mom and Grandma, Original Trump Supporter,” Lundgren did not mention the crisis in Minnesota. She said that the “challenges facing Iowa families are urgent, and I believe my voice and experience are most needed in the Iowa Legislature right now.”

Earlier on Monday, a leading Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota, Chris Madel, ended his campaign, and did cite the Trump administration’s activities in his home state.

He pointed to the “countless United States citizens who have been detained in Minnesota due to the color of their skin,” and noted, “I personally have spoken to several law enforcement officers, some Hispanic, and some Asian who have been pulled over by ice on pretextual stops.”

READ MORE: Trump Shifts Minnesota Messaging After Second Deadly Shooting Sparks Backlash

“Driving while Hispanic is not a crime,” Madel added. “Neither is driving while Asian.”

“United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear,” he also told supporters. “United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong.”

Responding to Lundgren’s announcement, political campaign strategist Jacob Perry said, “You’re going to start seeing a lot of this.”

Currently, 28 Republicans have either left Congress this term or announced their intention to not seek re-election. Twenty-three Democrats have as well.

Political strategists have largely predicted Democrats will take control of the House after the November midterm elections.

Democratic strategist and pundit James Carville, responding to the international outcry and condemnation over President Donald Trump’s failed efforts to acquire Greenland, predicted last week that he will likely lose big in the November midterm elections.

“He has to be electorally humiliated, and I think there’s a good, good chance that’s gonna happen this November,” Carville declared.

READ MORE: Trump: ‘We’re Bringing Back God’

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President Donald Trump appeared to be seeking to defuse bipartisan nationwide condemnation of the actions of federal agents in Minnesota after the second killing of a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis in under three weeks.

“Governor Tim Walz called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Monday morning. “It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength.”

After announcing earlier that he was sending his border czar to Minneapolis, Trump said that he told Walz that he would have Tom Homan call him, “and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession.”

“The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I!”

Trump also said that “both Governor Walz and I want to make it better!”

READ MORE: Minnesota GOP Candidate for Governor Quits Over Federal ‘Retribution’ on Citizens

Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported that “Trump appears to be seeking an off ramp, amid signs public opinion has soured on the aggressive immigration offensive in Minnesota — an increasing legal pushback. He even has some gentle praise for Walz.”

The Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted that Trump is “clearly now looking for a way to tone down” in Minnesota.

“The walk-back begins,” wrote journalist Ahmed Baba. “Whatever changes Trump makes with DHS, ICE, & its presence in Minnesota it is not out of decency. It’s a political calculation because GOP is worried about the midterms. But the damage is done. Americans see his cruel, authoritarian project for what it is.”

Just past midnight, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had “fielded dozens of calls over the weekend from administration officials and senators, advisers said, with some worrying that public sentiment has turned against the administration’s immigration-enforcement actions.”

“Some of the president’s aides have come to see the increasingly volatile situation in Minneapolis as a political liability and believe the White House should be looking for an off-ramp, according to administration officials. However, others in the administration believe that ending the current efforts in Minneapolis would be a capitulation to the left, officials said.”

READ MORE: Trump: ‘We’re Bringing Back God’

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