If Justice Dept. Can’t Prosecute Trump’s Foes, It Will ‘Shame’ Them, Official Says

President Trump has kept up a steady bombardment of suggestions, requests and demands to arrest, investigate or prosecute targets of his choosing — the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, various Democrats, officials who refuted his election lies, Beyoncé, the Boss.

But Mr. Trump’s directives have so far hit a stubborn snag. Few, if any, of those singled out have done anything to invite conventional prosecutorial scrutiny, much less committed prosecutable crimes to warrant an indictment under federal law.

But a Trump loyalist, given new, vague and possibly vast power, has found a workaround.

In recent days, Ed Martin, the self-described “captain” of the Justice Department’s “weaponization” group, made a candid if unsurprising admission: He plans to use his authority to expose and discredit those he believes to be guilty, even if he cannot find sufficient evidence to prosecute them — weaponizing an institution he has been hired to de-weaponize, in the view of critics.

“If they can be charged, we’ll charge them,” Mr. Martin told reporters before stepping down as interim U.S. attorney in Washington. “But if they can’t be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed.”

That is not the way things have worked. The cardinal rule of prosecutors is to speak only through evidence and court filings. The department is supposed to abide by the dictum of charging crimes, not people. Naming and shaming is antithetical to its mission of pursuing justice impartially. And Mr. Martin’s statement appears to violate the department’s ethical and procedural rule book, which mandates “fair, evenhanded” investigations to safeguard “the privacy and reputation interests of uncharged” investigative targets.