Department of Justice

Hawley Rips Merrick Garland

Featured image Yesterday Paul posted the video of Senator Tom Cotton ripping Attorney General Merrick Garland in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Another notable exchange in yesterday’s hearing featured Senator Josh Hawley, whose assault on Garland was epic. You shouldn’t miss it: I will hazard a guess that Garland’s tenure as Attorney General will not be a long one. »

Merrick Garland Testifies

Featured image Today Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before the House Judiciary Committee. The testimony lasted for more than five hours, and I haven’t had time to watch any significant part of it. But here are a couple of excerpts. The first is Rep. Jim Jordan, excoriating the Biden administration and the Obama administration that preceded it for their many violations of Americans’ civil rights. I think it is quite well done: »

Report: Andrew Cuomo under federal investigation

Featured image The other day, I suggested that Andrew Cuomo and/or members of his staff may have violated up to three federal criminal statutes in connection with a Justice Department request for information about nursing home deaths from the Wuhan coronavirus in New York. Now comes word that the FBI and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York have opened an investigation into Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes and »

Joe Biden’s DOJ double game

Featured image Joe Biden has decided to nominate Merrick Garland for Attorney General. Biden’s media allies are portraying Judge Garland as a moderate and his nomination as evidence of the president-elect’s moderation. Don’t buy it. Biden’s move is a clever attempt to appear moderate while radicalizing both the Justice Department and the D.C. Court of Appeals on which Garland presently serves. First, don’t accept the view that Garland is a moderate. His »

Biden weighs “competing questions” on whom to pick for Attorney General

Featured image President-elect Biden still hasn’t named a nominee for Attorney General. According to this report from CNN, the two leading contenders are Judge Merrick Garland and outgoing Senator Doug Jones. Sally Yates, whom I expected to be the frontrunner, and Deval ( “just words”) Patrick reportedly may still be in contention, but seem to be on the outside looking in. Until I read the CNN article, I couldn’t understand why Jones »

What should we expect from the Biden DOJ?

Featured image The answer is lots of bad stuff and mischief on all fronts. On “civil rights” alone, the Biden DOJ will reverse course on race-based preferences, backing discrimination against Whites and Asians by colleges, employers, etc. And it will back attacks on religious liberty, for example in the context of coronvirus restrictions on worship (if they remain in effect) and in cases where LGBT agenda items clash with religious freedom. The »

How About a Special Counsel?

Featured image Paul wrote a little while ago that the Senate should investigate the 2020 election to determine how susceptible our electoral systems are to fraud, and to recommend improvements. I agree. A reader offers another suggestion: why doesn’t Attorney General Barr appoint a Special Counsel to investigate voter fraud in the election, and bring criminal charges where appropriate? The nation is coming out of another close election and the air is »

The Washington Post Smears AG William Barr. I was There.

Featured image I have been in DC (Northern Virginia, actually) for the last two days, in connection with Hillsdale College’s Constitution Day event. Last night, Attorney General William Barr spoke at dinner. The main subject of his speech was the rule of law, and how the rule of law is advanced by the fact that in federal agencies, final decisions are up to the senior, political appointees. In the Department of Justice, »

Bruce Ohr Speaks

Featured image Judicial Watch has obtained the FBI’s “302” forms summarizing agents’ conversations with former associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr. You can read the reports here, and I have also embedded them at the bottom of this post. The 302 forms relate to a considerable number of interviews that the FBI conducted with Ohr between December 19, 2016, and May 16, 2017. The reports can be viewed in two ways: you »

How to punish a pedophile sex offender

Featured image Jeffrey Epstein was indicted for having sex with dozens of underage girls. His practice was to lure girls ages 13 to 16 to his mansion for a “massage.” He would molest them, paying extra for oral sex and intercourse, and offering more money to bring him new girls. In addition, Epstein reportedly had these underage girls engage in sex with his friends and associates. He would also induce them into »

Jessie Liu, an update

Featured image Jessie Liu is President Trump’s nominee for Associate Attorney General. This job is prestigious but usually not highly consequential. Liu likely has more impact in her current position as U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C. Liu is well qualified to be Associate Attorney General. However, in this post I raised a concern over her role as Vice President of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) at a time that NAWL »

High-level DOJ nominee was VP of group that opposed Alito’s nomination

Featured image The Trump administration has nominated Jessie Liu to be Associate Attorney General. This is the number three position at the Justice Department, behind the Attorney General (William Barr) and the Deputy Attorney General (Jeffrey Rosen). On paper, Liu seems well-qualified for the job. Currently, she’s the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. She has held important positions at Main Justice and the Treasury Department. But there is at least »

To disclose or not to disclose

Featured image Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said yesterday that the Justice Department should not reveal information about people it does not charge with a crime. The Washington Post views this as “an ominous sign for those hoping the department will soon disclose the closely held details of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of President Trump and his campaign.” In reality, Rosenstein is unlikely to have any say about what the Justice »

DOJ opens probe of Acosta’s deal with Jeffrey Epstein

Featured image The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta’s role in negotiating a disgraceful plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein, who has been accused of molesting dozens of underage girls. Thanks to Acosta, then the U.S. attorney in South Florida, Epstein, who could have faced life imprisonment for sex trafficking, managed to plead to only two state prostitution charges. Epstein served served just 13 months in »

Will the DOJ investigate the Epstein-Acosta plea deal? It’s up to the Senate

Featured image When he was a U.S. Attorney in South Florida, Alex Acosta, now President Trump’s Secretary of Labor, gave pedophile Jeffrey Epstein the deal of a lifetime. According to the Miami Herald, a federal investigation revealed 36 underage victims of Epstein (the Herald apparently found dozens of additional ones). Yet, through a plea agreement with then-U.S. Attorney Acosta, Epstein managed to plead to only two state prostitution charges. Epstein served just »

What we have learned so far (7)

Featured image House sources leaked the testimony of Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr to Congress last year. Ohr himself was a conduit for the Steele Dossier and Russian meddling in the presidential election of 2016 if the dossier is taken at face value, as the FBI purported to take it. John Solomon broke the story of Ohr’s testimony here. Sara Carter had more here. Kim Strassel devoted her weekly Wall Street »

Report: Rosenstein will be out soon

Featured image A local D.C. news outlet has tweeted that “Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave his role in the coming weeks.” There’s nothing surprising about this report, which is consistent with what I’ve been hearing for some time. With any luck, a new Attorney General will soon be in place. He will want and deserve a new Deputy. What’s surprises me is that Rosenstein lasted as long as »