You make it sound like they are doing corruption. I.e. don’t prosecute your friends, do prosecute your enemies. But this is more like using the power at your jurisdiction level to oppose unjust laws.

I.e. where i live the city council long ago directed police to stop arresting people for marijuana possession - on the grounds that this is an unjust law and criminalizing it is tying up resources and doing more harm than good, and because the majority of the city’s population supports legalization. City gov doesn’t have the power to change those laws, but they can fix it locally by directing enforcement away from them. A decade later, it was legalized - imo proving that it was the right decision.

This did not “diminish trust” in the gov. In fact, laws that the majority disagree with but stay on the books do far far more damage to the credibility of gov, in my opinion