Jamie Raskin: FBI, DOJ Under Trump, 'Filled' With 'Staggering Corruption And Weaponized Lawlessness'

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At a House Judiciary Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) spoke about the DOJ and FBI under President Donald Trump.   Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00from the folks who are now running that critical department and agency.

00:04With that, I yield back.

00:06Thank you, Chairman.

00:07I now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Raskin, for his opening

00:11statement.

00:12Mr. Chairman, thank you very kindly.

00:15Last Congress, the good chairman of the committee and the committee sent over 150 letters of

00:22inquiry and subpoenas to the DOJ and the FBI.

00:25That's more than two inquiries a week for every week that we were in session.

00:30All that breathless investigation didn't yield much evidence of weaponization, any more than

00:36it led to the impeachment of Joe Biden, which was the express objective of it all.

00:41But I have good news for all of the weaponized sleuths and gumshoes out there on the committee.

00:48The Department of Justice and the FBI are now filled with actual staggering corruption

00:56and weaponized lawlessness, and we should get on it immediately.

00:59It's only been 36 days since the beginning of the administration, but we already have

01:04a thick report we're releasing today on the violations of law in the Constitution that

01:11have taken place, the early misdeeds of the Trump administration DOJ.

01:16It's true the federal courts have issued more than 20 temporary restraining orders

01:20and preliminary injunctions to try to stop this governmental crime wave, but we cannot

01:26maintain a demure legislative silence, Mr. Chairman, about the shocking weaponized corruption

01:32overtaking the U.S. Department of Justice.

01:37Ten days ago, seven career prosecutors resigned in protest rather than carry out a corrupt

01:42and lawless order from the acting Deputy Attorney General and former Donald Trump

01:47private defense attorney, Emile Bove.

01:50He ordered prosecutors in the Southern District to dismiss for totally political reasons a

01:55major public corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, who had been charged by

02:01a unanimous grand jury in a 57-page indictment with five felony counts of criminal bribery

02:08and soliciting illegal contributions.

02:11Trump ordered DOJ to withdraw the grand jury indictment after Adams traveled to Mar-a-Lago

02:19and agreed to back Trump's political agenda in return.

02:24The interim U.S. attorney, Danielle Sassoon, resigned rather than make her storied office

02:29a party to this profoundly corrupt bargain.

02:32She refused to extend prosecutorial favoritism towards a politician who had been indicted

02:39for serious bribery and corruption charges, nor would she participate in Mr. Bove's project

02:45to cover up the details of this dirty deal.

02:48Ms. Sassoon is a Republican with impeccable credentials in the conservative movement,

02:53for anyone who might doubt it, a member of the Federalist Society and a former law clerk

02:59to Supreme Court Justice Scalia, a jurist whom I know the Chairman has repeatedly praised.

03:05Now, in ordinary times, we wouldn't have to raise this, but here we do, because we live

03:09in an atmosphere of political paranoia.

03:11This is a very conservative U.S. attorney who said she could not abide the corruption

03:18of the new Trump administration's Department of Justice.

03:21Her resignation triggered a cascade of further resignations as six other veteran prosecutors

03:28refused in their turn to take part in this corrupt bargain.

03:32The officials included the acting head of the criminal division, several leaders of

03:36DOJ's public integrity section, and the lead prosecutor on the case from the Southern

03:41District, Hagan Scotton, a decorated veteran and another Republican with impeccable right-wing

03:47credentials who could not stomach the thought of joining this plot, and said in a letter

03:52for the ages that I will submit to the record that it would take a fool or a coward to join

04:00this plot against justice.

04:02Next day, an apparently exasperated Mr. Bove demanded that the career prosecutors in the

04:08public integrity section volunteer one lawyer to sign this disgraceful dismissal order or

04:16there would be a mass firing of all of them.

04:18One lawyer set to retire agreed to sign the dismissal to protect his colleagues from this

04:25outrageous threat of collective mass punishment, something that would be more appropriate to

04:30Stalin's Russia than the United States of America.

04:34This eye-popping sellout of public integrity and public safety in New York wasn't even

04:39a secret.

04:40In a Fox News interview, Tom Homan, the borders are, sat next to Mayor Adams and explicitly

04:46referred to the corrupt bargain, saying, quote, if he doesn't come through, I'll be back in

04:51New York and we won't be sitting on a couch, I'll be in his office up his butt, saying

04:55where the hell is the agreement we came to?

04:58Last Friday, the judge in the case at least provisionally refused to honor this dirty

05:04deal.

05:05Instead, appointing an independent monitor, Republican Paul Clement, to evaluate what

05:10should be done with the now orphaned five count criminal corruption indictment.

05:15Mr. Chairman, these facts are shocking, blatant corruption, cover-up, mass resignations, threats,

05:22coercion.

05:23This, can you imagine what the Republican members of this committee would be saying

05:28if that happened under President Biden?

05:30If Joe Biden had done that for the corrupt Democratic mayor of New York City?

05:35My God, this toxic sweetheart deal demands a committee inquiry.

05:41Where is it?

05:42It's infinitely worse than any of the flotsam and jetsam the committee examined with the

05:48brainy intensity of Lieutenant Columbo in last Congress.

05:51But the majority has asked no questions, written no letters, demanded no briefings, issued

05:56no subpoenas on this scandal.

05:58Why not?

05:59Why has the cat got your tongue?

06:02Well, this Adams debacle provides just a whiff of the raw sewage already overpouring the

06:09Department of Justice.

06:10They sacked dozens of prosecutors with superior credentials and evaluations simply for doing

06:16their jobs when they were assigned to work on the January 6th case.

06:20These people must get their jobs back under the civil service rules, which allow dismissal

06:25and discipline only for poor performance or misconduct.

06:28But the majority has not uttered a peep wondering about how such an appalling violation of the

06:34law and professional ethics has come to pass.

06:37Why not?

06:38Last Congress, you investigated the DOJ for allegedly hiring and firing employees based

06:42on political ideology.

06:43Nothing came of it.

06:45Now DOJ has openly fired dozens of career prosecutors, Republicans, Democrats, Independents,

06:51for the sole reason that they were assigned to work on the January 6th insurrection cases.

06:57In other words, for doing their jobs in a case that Donald Trump now considers uncomfortable

07:02for him.

07:03How is that remotely acceptable?

07:06Even Trump said on January 7th, in the wake of the vicious premeditated attack on our

07:11police and our Congress and our Constitution, that it was a heinous attack.

07:16He said the demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American

07:20democracy.

07:21To those who engage in acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country.

07:25And to those who broke the law, he said, you will pay.

07:29Well, the only people paying now after his pardons are the prosecutors and FBI agents

07:34they're going after for doing their jobs.

07:38Because Donald Trump thinks it's too much truth.

07:41In an act of Orwellian revisionism that would make Joseph Stalin blush, Trump's team wants

07:46to punish hardworking prosecutors and FBI agents for doing the job they were told to

07:52do.

07:53If this is not weaponization of the Department of Justice, then what is, Mr. Chairman?

07:58It is far worse than the imaginary things floating around last Congress that led nowhere.

08:05When will we have a hearing on what is taking place for real in the Department of Justice

08:09right now?

08:10They've hollowed out the career leadership ranks at DOJ, ravaging the offices that prosecute

08:16public corruption and terrorism.

08:18Now we meet Ed Martin, the new U.S. attorney in D.C. who's already proven himself to be

08:23to legal ethics what Bobby Kennedy is to public health.

08:27He's an election denier who participated in the insurrectionary mass protest of January

08:346th, which he joyfully likened to Mardi Gras on the social media.

08:39And until recently, very recently in fact, into his term of office, he's been a defense

08:44lawyer of record in the courts for numerous January 6th criminal defendants.

08:50After taking over the U.S. attorney's office, he fired dozens of prosecutors, again, for

08:56doing their jobs, for prosecuting January 6th rioters.

09:00But DOJ ethics rules plainly require that he recuse himself because of this glaring

09:05conflict of interest created by his ongoing representation of private plaintiffs being

09:12prosecuted by the government.

09:13Naturally, the Trump DOJ forced out the senior ethics official, Brad Weinsheimer, who would

09:19have ruled on the matter, and replaced him with two inexperienced political appointees

09:23who apparently think it's okay not just for the fox to guard the hen house, but for the

09:27fox to simultaneously represent other foxes in court who have already ravaged the hen

09:33house.

09:34Mr. Martin has literally made filings on both sides of January 6th cases as defense counsel

09:40for participants in the riot, and now as a prosecutor dismissing the charges against

09:45the same defendants he was representing.

09:48When will there be a hearing on this?

09:50This is taking place right now.

09:53The list goes on.

09:54We don't have time to go through everything that's already happened, but I would encourage

09:57the chairman to please check out our report.

10:01This hearing was entitled, Entering the Golden Age, Ending the Weaponization at the Department

10:07of Justice, a title that comes just in time to help us celebrate the 50th anniversary

10:12of Saturday Night Live.

10:13Well, perhaps the title's referring to a golden age for corrupt billionaires, or lawless oligarchs,

10:19and violent white nationalists, but it's no golden age for the Department of Justice,

10:24which is now mired in corruption and lawlessness, halting corruption prosecutions, disbanding

10:30the anti-corruption task forces, and purging veteran prosecutors and agents who are dedicated

10:36to public safety and have superior performance evaluations, but have run afoul of the new

10:41political correctness imposed on the department.

10:45Chairman Jordan has championed our power under Article I to ensure that the Department of

10:49Justice upholds the rule of law for all, without fear or favor.

10:53Good for him.

10:54I don't need to quote his eloquent speeches for you on this subject.

10:57We know them well.

10:59So I ask this committee to be true to our own beautiful words.

11:03Let's not use our oversight power selectively.

11:06Let's investigate these startling developments so dangerous to justice in America.

11:12And let's start with the dirty deal with Mayor Adams, which has now put a giant worm in the

11:17Big Apple.

11:18Mr. Chairman, I would invite you to join us in sending this letter today to Attorney General

11:24Bondi demanding specific answers on her shocking abuse of prosecutorial power, the shocking

11:31abuse of prosecutorial power that has taken place at DOJ in the whole Mayor Adams matter,

11:37and I would think that the committee should move very quickly to have a hearing on this

11:40next week.

11:41Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.

11:42I yield back.

11:44Thank you, Ranking Member.

11:45Real quickly, Pam Bondi will be here for the Committee of the Whole, I'm sure, and members

11:50also will meet some of our staff and ranking people.

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