Trump Justice Department
May 7, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The conduct of the FBI and the Department of Justice in the Flynn case has been a complete and utter disgrace to both institutions. Earlier today Flynn Department of Justice prosecutor Brandon Van Grack withdrew from the case. Now comes news that the Department of Justice is moving to dismiss the case against Flynn, saving Judge Sullivan the necessity of ruling on Flynn’s pending motions. I believe I predicted this
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May 5, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Mark Herring, a Democrat, is the Attorney General of Virginia. Like Gov. Ralph Northam, also a Democrat, Herring found it amusing to wear black face. He did so at a party in 1980. Herring still doesn’t have much appreciation for civil rights. He’s defending Virginia social distancing policies that led to the pastor of a Virginia church being cited for holding a church service. There were sixteen people in the
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May 4, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about the Department of Justice’s involvement in a Greenville, Mississippi case. As I explained, Greenville’s mayor had discriminated against a religious right guaranteed by the First Amendment — the right to hold a church service. This violation resulted in litigation. The DOJ filed a statement of interest on behalf of the church in question. Greenville backed down. Now, the Justice Department has filed a statement of interest
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March 30, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Justice Department has filed a statement of interest in a case challenging a Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) policy that enables biological males to compete against biological females. Attorney General Barr explained: In our pluralistic society we generally try to accommodate how individuals desire to live their lives up to the point where those desires impinge on the other people’s rights. Allowing biological males to compete in all-female sports
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March 10, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice enforces federal statutes that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin. Under Democratic presidents, the Civil Rights Division largely confines itself to enforcing these statutes for the benefit of groups that are among the Democrats’ core constituencies, especially African-Americans. To be fair, these are the groups that, by far, have suffered most from discrimination in
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March 7, 2020 — Scott Johnson
You may have read about Senior United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton’s whack upside the head of Attorney General Barr this week. The whack was administered in Judge Walton’s opinion ruling on the Freedom of Information Act case that seeks the Department of Justice’s release of an unredacted version of the Mueller report. The opinion is accessible online here. Judge Walton’s whack is misguided. The Wall Street Journal takes
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February 26, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The Trump Department of Justice has steadfastly opposed racial discrimination without regard to which racial group is the victim. Yesterday, pursuant to this policy, the DOJ filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Asian-American plaintiffs who were discriminated against as a result of Harvard University’s race-based admissions preferences for African-American applicants. The case is on appeal from a district court ruling that found no discrimination by Harvard. We discussed
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February 16, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday I noted that Attorney General Barr has tasked Jeff Jensen, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, with a review of the case brought against former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. In addition to stints with PriceCoopersWaterhouse as a CPA, with the FBI as a Special Agent, with the Eastern District of Missouri US Attorney’s office as an Assistant United States Attorney, Jensen also worked,
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February 15, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
William Barr has received much praise from conservatives and especially from President Trump’s most ardent supporters. The praise is deserved. Among his other virtues, Barr has stood up to his anti-Trump critics in Congress and the mainstream media to promote fair treatment for President Trump. His handling of the Mueller report is a good example. And Barr has done this without compromising the integrity of the Justice Department or running
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February 15, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Attorney General Barr has reportedly tasked Jeff Jensen, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, with a review of the case brought against former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. We have closely followed the Flynn case, which seems to have involved an operation run against him by the Comey FBI and Obama holdover Sally Yates. One should think that such a review is long overdue. The
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February 14, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Scott got a lot off his chest in his post called “Jeff Sessions: The Open Questions,” a critique of my post called “It’s John Bolton’s turn.” That’s good. However, it will take more than one post for me to respond. This first post will focus on matters related to Jeff Sessions and what I take to be the demonizing of him. Scott opens by saying that demonizing anyone other than
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February 10, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
In a post I wrote last week about what I view as the demonization of John Bolton, I said that Bolton has plenty of company under the Trump bus. As an example, I cited Jeff Sessions, a conservative hero of longstanding who fell out of favor after he recused himself, for ethical reasons, from the Justice Department’s Russia investigation and his deputy appointed Robert Mueller to investigate on the DOJ’s
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January 22, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump will attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C. on Friday. He will be the first president to do so. The event is held every year on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. The Trump administration is supporting the pro-life movement in substantive ways as well. The most recent example is the Justice Department’s filing of a brief supporting an Ohio law that
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January 4, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Some of us who criticize the House’s second article of impeachment against Trump — alleged obstruction of justice based on refusing to produce documents and witnesses — argue that the remedy for the non-cooperation is to seek enforcement of subpoenas in court, not to impeach the president. However yesterday, as discussed below, the Trump Justice Department argued in court that the judiciary shouldn’t even consider enforcing House subpoenas because to
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December 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
While the Obama Department of Labor plods through its eleventh year, the Trump Justice Department is steaming through its third. As I discussed here, the Labor Department is prosecuting compensation discrimination cases brought in the dying days of the Obama administration based on spurious theories long peddled by radicals. In addition, the Labor Department persists in demanding that federal contractors “allow employees and applicants to use restrooms consistent with their
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October 24, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The New York Times reports that Attorney General Barr’s review of the Obama administrations spying on the 2016 Trump presidential campaign has turned into a criminal investigation. The linked article is an editorial in the guise of a story. Some might say — I would — that it is about time for a criminal investigation of the spying. Others (such as the authors of the laughable Times story) are breaking
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September 13, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, deserves to be prosecuted. His crimes, false statements to federal investigators, were documented by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, an Obama appointee. Andy McCarthy discusses the crimes here. McCabe is an enemy and fierce critic of President Trump. I always worry when enemies of the president face criminal prosecution. Sending political enemies to prison is a hallmark of authoritarian
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