Edward Luce: “J.D. Vance, now America’s vice-president elect, last month said that the second-most important figure in Donald Trump’s administration would be his attorney-general. Nobody, least of all the incoming number two, ever said that about a US presidency. Typically, the shortlists for secretary of state, defence secretary, Treasury secretary or CIA director dominate the speculation. Yet Vance was straight talking. Trump’s bitterest first term gripe was that the Department of Justice did not bend to his will. We can assume that whoever Trump picks as attorney-general will owe him personal loyalty.”
“There are few theoretical limits on what Trump can do to carry out his vows of revenge. The Supreme Court made sure of that in the summer when it gave the US president near blanket immunity. The question is whether Trump faces practical or inner limits to his pursuit of enemies. It is possible that he feels so vindicated by last week’s victory, and so liberated by having escaped prison time, that he is basking in a new spirit of magnanimity. That would be out of character. Yet it takes a morbid pessimism to believe that he will turn the US into a police state. His likelier course will be somewhere in between.”
