Trump DOJ Just ATTACKED Me?!

0:00 Among other things, the Department of Justice

0:02 in the Trump administration doing some weird stuff right now.

0:07 The Department of Justice,

0:08 which is empowered to and responsible for protecting all of us from attack,

0:13 from security issues, from the mob and drug runners,

0:16 is taking some of its time, some of its energy,

0:18 and some of its bandwidth on social media to name-call,

0:22 name-check, and attack individual reporters who cover them.

0:26 And we reporters are on the playing field.

0:28 We are subject to criticism regularly.

0:32 It's part of the job.

0:33 The Department of Justice is taking time to do that, though,

0:35 is a statement about priorities.

0:37 I'll explain why in a moment.

0:39 First, let me set the scene.

0:40 I'm outside CNN, where it was a Wednesday night appearance

0:43 where I was asked to talk about the Department of Justice,

0:45 some of the decisions being made lately.

0:47 And I'll note one of the key decisions made was

0:50 a judge's decision to allow the Department to keep hold,

0:53 keep possession of the 2020 election ballots

0:56 they seized from Fulton County, Georgia, weeks ago.

0:59 You'll recall there was some back and forth.

1:01 Fulton County was suing to get those ballots back and suing for other measures.

1:05 And I had reported on one of the filings by the Department of Justice.

1:09 Take a look at it.

1:10 In that filing, they made what some would characterize as a bad faith argument,

1:15 that the judge or the public may view poorly, may view that poorly.

1:20 The argument they made in the filing

1:21 was that the president's adversaries raided Mar-a-Lago,

1:26 tried to lock him up to prevent him from running for re-election in 2024.

1:31 The objective view on that was that it was a Trump-appointed

1:34 FBI leader who signed off on the raids at Mar-a-Lago.

1:38 And, of course, it was grand juries who

1:41 saw fit to hand up indictments against Trump,

1:44 not once but twice here in Washington for the election conspiracy case,

1:47 the subversion case.

1:50 The Department of Justice didn't take kindly to the reporting

1:53 and posted at me and posted at others.

1:56 It's a statement about priorities.

1:58 It's a question about where is your focus?

1:59 Is your focus on the broader issues

2:01 and the greater good or on singularly targeting individuals?

2:05 And I don't mean media criticism.

2:07 That happens all the time.

2:08 I mean the cases and the investigations

2:10 that are being launched against Trump critics.

2:13 You've seen a bunch of them lately, haven't we?

2:16 In a recent interview, former President Barack Obama said, and I quote,

2:20 "The White House shouldn't be able to direct the Attorney General to go

2:24 around prosecuting whoever the president wants

2:27 to prosecute." You're the Attorney General.

2:30 What is your response?

2:33 Well, I coincidentally, I happen to have,

2:38 I think, a copy of the our Constitution.

2:43 So, if we want, we can read our Constitution together.

2:46 Article 2 says the executive power shall be vested

2:50 in a President of the United States of America.

2:52 It does not say that the Attorney General stands off to the side.

2:56 So, as a I'm an acting Attorney General,

2:58 the Attorney General is a member of the cabinet

3:01 of the President of the United States.

3:03 The Constitution gives the President power.

3:05 So, I I question I question people

3:09 in this country that suggest that President Trump,

3:12 as the as the chief executive of the United States,

3:16 does not have the authority or the right

3:18 or shouldn't be leading this country in all areas,

3:21 including what we need to be doing to get rid of crime in this country.

3:26 But the accusation here from the former president

3:28 is that your department is now charging political

3:32 adversaries of the president or perceived political adversaries

3:36 of the president on his behalf to settle scores.

3:38 There's there's something extraordinarily rich about a a Democrat

3:44 suggesting that this administration is charging our political adversaries.

3:48 I mean, first of all, we're not.

3:49 Second of all, how about we think about what happened the past 4 years?

3:53 On CNN we talked about what's happening inside

3:56 the Department of Justice and about these priorities.

4:00 Want to bring in Scott McFarland,

4:02 chief Washington correspondent for Midas Touch Network.

4:05 I'm really eager to hear your uh opinion of what's going

4:08 on here because the timing is what's raising so many eyebrows.

4:12 But tell me what more are we learning tonight

4:14 about this and and why this raid happened now?

4:17 Let's start with the timing cuz the timing is about

4:19 as subtle as a ball peen hammer to the face.

4:21 I mean this happens what?

4:22 15 days after Louise Lucas was a political force of nature and muscled

4:28 through that redrawing of the lines in Virginia could flip four seats,

4:32 four from Republicans to Democrats and it's happening as the president's allies

4:36 want other states to respond in kind emboldened by the Supreme Court.

4:40 They want Tennessee to move, Mississippi to move, South Carolina to move.

4:44 So the timing's a little bit sus.

4:46 That notwithstanding, Louise Lucas is a power broker.

4:51 She is not any state senator and because the FBI appears very clearly

4:56 to have invited Fox News along to amplify this, to broadcast this raid,

5:00 to share the images nationwide, they are trying to send some form

5:04 of a message notwithstanding whatever case they have.

5:07 Even if this investigation is totally legitimate,

5:10 there has been a quite a hit to the credibility

5:13 of the DOJ given the the political enemies list so to speak,

5:17 the targeting of people who have spoken out against Trump.

5:20 So I mean how much has the DOJ's damaged credibility

5:23 in that realm impacted the way people are perceiving what's happened now?

5:26 Let's just take the next,

5:27 let's say 72 hours of our lives, the next three business days.

5:31 Tomorrow, Southern Poverty Law Center arraignment.

5:34 Tomorrow, Mark Kelly, Democratic Senator from Arizona,

5:37 goes to court against Pete Hegseth to argue about retribution.

5:41 Monday, James Comey, preliminary hearing in Greenville, North Carolina.

5:45 That's just the next three business days.

5:48 My reporting is that over the past 15 months, Laura,

5:50 the Department of Justice has lost 3,400 attorneys who've quit,

5:55 who've retired, who've been fired.

5:58 That's an awful lot of people,

5:59 and you can't just go to the prosecutor store and pick up some new ones.

6:02 It takes time to backfill the purge that's happened.

6:06 I think a lot of people have left.

6:08 Some have told me because they

6:09 find the perception of politicization as objectionable

6:13 and something they have to get away from whether it's politicized or not,

6:16 it's certainly being perceived that way.

6:18 What you describe is a loss for the pursuit of justice as well, more broadly.

6:21 I mean, one person who has doubts about the current DOJ is a former president.

6:25 Talking about President Barack Obama.

6:27 And he actually called out the acting Attorney General Todd Blanched,

6:30 and Blanched responded.

6:31 Listen.

6:34 The nor- the the idea is that the Attorney General is the people's lawyer.

6:39 It's not the president's consigliere.

6:41 You can't have a situation in which

6:43 [applause] whoever's in charge of the government starts using that to go after

6:49 their political enemies or reward their friends, right?

6:52 There's something extraordinarily rich about a a Democrat

6:57 suggesting that this administration is charging our political adversaries.

7:01 I mean, first of all, we're not.

7:04 Well, I mean, this has almost become kind of the the norm since the first term.

7:07 I mean, can it be reversed?

7:10 Will it need to be reversed?

7:12 Will the next person to wear those shoes, the next person at those desks,

7:16 have to change things back,

7:17 or will they be politically imperiled if they try to do so?

7:20 Great open-ended question, a really important one.

7:23 To me, the fundamental issue here is that you have civil servants

7:27 at the Department of Justice who want nothing to do with this.

7:31 Yeah.

7:31 They don't like the perception,

7:33 and when you lose people from the Department of Justice,

7:35 Laura, you have indirectly given criminal

7:38 defendants more leverage in the system.

7:40 If they're short-staffed at the prosecutor's office,

7:43 some cases don't get taken, some cases get pleaded out.

7:46 Cuz of course the overwhelming number of cases the DOJ prosecutors handle

7:50 have nothing to do with this political retribution that is being perceived,

7:53 and yet if you have a 3,000-plus exodus,

7:57 that's 3,000 at least caseloads that are not being addressed,

8:00 and that's being felt.

8:01 I do wonder when you look at these cases and the reporting you have, um,

8:06 a raid like this, politically,

8:08 how is it being perceived by people who are in the legislative branch?

8:13 Well, Louise Lucas put out a statement saying

8:15 she's not going to back down in Virginia.

8:17 And as you'd imagine, that was triumphantly celebrated by so many Democrats.

8:21 It's stand up, stand up for yourself.

8:23 Let's wait to see a charging document, if there's going to be one,

8:26 if there's going to be one,

8:27 before we cast judgment on this matter, but it's telling.

8:31 It's rare the FBI invites media to come along for a raid.

8:34 They don't do that to protect the raidee and the raider, usually.

8:39 This is just different.

8:39 Let's see if it lands differently with the public.

8:41 Let's see.

8:41 Scott McFarland, thank you as always.

8:43 And there are more fights to come.

8:46 Thursday morning, an appeals court hears the arguments from Senator Mark Kelly,

8:50 who's filed suit against Pete Hegseth,

8:52 alleging there's been a retribution campaign against Kelly by Hegseth.

8:56 It's an appeals court hearing.

8:57 On Monday, James Comey is in court for a preliminary hearing in his federal

9:02 criminal case that critics of the administration

9:05 argue has been very much vindictive.

9:08 Um, David, does this indictment make sense to you?

9:12 No, it makes no sense.

9:14 Um, this is something that brings stain and dishonor on the department,

9:18 on its leadership, on the line prosecutors and their supervisory officials.

9:22 Um, this case has zero merit.

9:24 It's contrary to applicable law.

9:27 It's contrary to department policy, which governs all prosecutors across

9:31 this country and every US attorney's office.

9:33 No prosecutor is allowed to bring

9:34 a case unless they believe the admissible evidence

9:37 is sufficient to probably result in a conviction and to sustain that on appeal.

9:44 And although there could be some additional evidence

9:46 out there that they didn't include the indictment,

9:47 it seems improbable and on its face I think as has been said just a moment ago,

9:52 I think the case for a vindictive prosecution motion which

9:56 almost never succeeds has a really strong chance of prevailing here.

9:59 And if this case were to get to trial,

10:02 it's likely almost certainly to result in an acquittal or at least a hung jury.

10:06 It's a statement about priorities.

10:08 Big priorities, small priorities.

10:11 Whether our government should be spending its time protecting us,

10:16 ensuring national security,

10:18 or trolling individual political critics or individual reporters.

10:22 Really want to thank you for watching.

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