Trump Threatens the Independence of DOJ? Let’s Hope So!

This morning, President Trump tweeted his frustration with the Department of Justice, which has stonewalled Congressional investigations, among other offenses. He concluded, “At some point I will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the Presidency and get involved!” Which prompted (via Twitchy) a hilarious response from Vox, a low-information site that purports to explain current events for the benefit of liberals:


Put aside the fact that Voxers apparently can’t spell. The idea that the Department of Justice is “independent” of the president is ludicrous. It is part of the Executive Branch, which the President runs. See Article II of the Constitution. The President appoints the Attorney General, and DOJ reports to the president just as other federal agencies do. The President sets policies to be executed by DOJ, and his Attorney General and the AG’s subordinates carry them out.

That is how it is supposed to work, anyway. And it certainly is how it worked during the Obama administration, when Attorney General Eric Holder described himself as President Obama’s “wing man.”

What is going on here? Constitutional illiteracy, to be sure. But also, an open expression of the view that the federal bureaucracy–the fourth branch, the administrative state–not only is, but ought to be a fifth column whenever the President is a Republican. For the Left, obstruction of the President’s policies by his subordinates is a positive virtue, as long as the President is a Republican.

While we are making fun of Vox, let’s take a brief walk down memory lane: “Vox: The Web Site For Dummies.” The Voxers deleted this tweet, but not before someone took a screen shot:

That’s what happens, I guess, when your oldest employee is 26. No one has heard of the National Recovery Administration.

Still, the illiterates are probably having the last laugh. NBC reportedly invested $200 million in Vox. So the goofballs who run the site have no doubt made out like bandits, no matter how pathetic their work is. And NBC has probably gotten what it wanted, another money-losing venue to promote leftism.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses