The president is trying to destroy what Americans have long assumed about who we are and how the justice system works. He is doing two kinds of damage. There’s the head-on-collision damage: the “phony Witch Hunt,” “FBI corruption,” in-your-face insult damage. And there’s the much more insidious damage that results from remarks like the ones he made before Manafort’s hearing. They continually lower the bar on presidential conduct, now and for the future.
