Former President Barack Obama took a thinly veiled swipe at President Donald Trump on Tuesday night, warning that American democracy “can’t overcome” the “politicization of the criminal justice system” and cautioned that the attorney general must never become the president’s personal “consigliere.”

Though Obama did not mention Trump by name, the remarks appeared to reference accusations by critics that the Trump administration has sought to target perceived enemies through the Justice Department in efforts against former FBI director James Comey and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Speaking to Stephen Colbert on CBS’s The Late Show, Tuesday, Obama argued that while the political system could withstand divisive elections and policy swings, it could not survive the use of prosecutorial power against political opponents.

The comments came after the host asked what powers he believed the president “shouldn’t have.”

The former president replied, “Well, there are a couple that I followed even though they weren’t law and we’re going to have to do some work to return to this basic norm and we probably now have to codify it. The White House shouldn’t be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever the president wants prosecuted, right?”

“Because technically it’s under the executive branch. The norm is that it’s independent,” Colbert said.

“The idea is that the attorney general is the people’s lawyer, it’s not the president’s consigliere,” Obama followed, in a mafia-coded snipe.

He continued: “Two of the core principles of a democracy, we can survive a lot – bad policy, funky elections, there’s a bunch of stuff that, you know, we can overcome. We can’t overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system. The awesome power of the state. You can’t have a situation in which whoever’s in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies or reward their friends.”

“So another power maybe I’d say would be, although this is in the constitution it’s a little hard to change but, maybe don’t pardon people who’ve given you a bunch of campaign contributions,” Obama said in a more pointed quip at Trump. “Or [go] investing in the businesses.”

He concluded that “restoring some sense” that the Justice Department is “independent in making judgments about specific cases and prosecutions” was key to democracy surviving.

Watch above via CBS.

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