Yet in the process, they’re alarming law enforcement veterans across the political spectrum who see the Democrats engaging in their own version of the politicization of the country’s criminal justice system that Trump was accused of when he fanned chants of “lock her up” during his own 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton.

“Presidents aren’t supposed to suggest there be investigations or prosecutions of particular people, let alone their political rivals,” said Matt Axelrod, a former senior Obama-era Justice Department official. “President Trump has flagrantly and repeatedly violated that norm, but that doesn’t mean the norm has been obliterated.”

“It’s so un-American to prosecute your political enemies,” added Alan Dershowitz, the retired Harvard law professor, civil libertarian and occasional cable television Trump defender. “That’s what they do in banana republics.”