"For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law."

As the Justice Department becomes the Just Us Department, the 1930s-era phrase is relevant anew.

It was part of a larger and unsubtle effort. After the Democratic mayor was indicted by federal prosecutors on corruption charges, and after Donald Trump won a second term in the White House, Adams started trying to curry favor with the incoming Republican administration in its allies. Plenty of observers drew a rather obvious conclusion: The mayor appeared to be angling for either a presidential pardon or a dismissal of his case.

University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and an MSNBC legal analyst, noted a couple of weeks ago that “it would be a bad look” for the Justice Department to drop a major public corruption case after the mayor showed “public support for Trump.”

She was right, of course, but it appears the Trump administration was unconcerned with appearances. NBC News reported:

Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove has ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, a senior Justice Department official said Monday evening. The order is for all charges against Adams to be dismissed, and the dismissal is without prejudice, the official said, meaning charges could be refiled in the future.

Under normal circumstances, prosecutors back off an indictment when they have concerns about the merits of the case, the reliability of the evidence, or the likelihood of a conviction. In Adams’ case, however, the Justice Department instead pointed to Adams’ upcoming re-election bid — why that would be relevant remains unclear — and the mayor’s willingness to work with the administration on matters related to immigration and crime policy......

The transition is effectively complete. The Justice Department is now the Just Us Department.

The Adams case collapsed one day after Trump pardoned former Gov. Rob Blagojevich, an ex-con whose crimes are synonymous

with corrupt Illinois politics, but who also aligned himself with the president.

Trump’s Justice Department recently abandoned charges against the president’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case.

Federal prosecutors recently abandoned the criminal case against a former Republican congressman who’d already been found guilty of corruption by a jury.

Trump’s Justice Department also took steps to abandon a criminal investigation against an incumbent Republican congressman.

All of these developments, of course, coincide with an aggressive campaign to purge federal law enforcement of prosecutors and FBI officials who worked on cases that the president doesn’t like. The efforts are ongoing, and according to the president’s own public comments, they’re likely to get worse.,,,,,

The New York Times’ David French recently noted, “There’s a very real question as to whether federal law will apply to Trump’s allies at all during Trump’s term. The atmosphere of impunity may be like nothing we’ve seen in our lifetimes.”

The message to those aligned with the White House couldn’t be clearer: They can do as they please, without regard for legal limits, knowing that the president — himself a convicted felon — has created an accountability-free zone for himself and those who agree to follow him.

The result is a crisis unlikely any in modern American history.