Stephen Collinson of CNN –
President Donald Trump has spent three years discrediting and sidelining institutional sources of facts, truth and trust that threaten his political and personal goals.
Rarely has that mission combined in a single day to such a grave result as it did this week. The White House rejected new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on safely reopening the country — with US deaths from the coronavirus surpassing 75,000 — and the handpicked officials leading the Justice Department dropped charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Both cases show how Trump disdains government structures meant to dispense independent and fact-based policymaking, science and justice free from corrupting political influences.