Rep. Darrell Issa Defends President Trump Weaponizing Justice Department

TMZ

Rep. Darrell Issa is defending President Trump using the Justice Department to investigate his political foes ... and he says Trump's no worse than Joe Biden.

Transcript

00:00There's a difference between going after the man who is the candidate against you for president

00:07and finding ways in both federal and state court to create charges that had never existed before,

00:16to raid the former president's home and take information and then charge him with something

00:24less, if it was wrong, it was less wrong than what the president, former president Biden had

00:29done himself. And to say to the Department of Justice, look into this. You know, there's a

00:35thorough review at the Department of Justice in all aspects, and there should be. What a U.S.

00:40attorney does in the last few days of one administration, certainly the new U.S. attorney

00:45should quickly look at it and decide whether those cases should still be dismissed or go forward and

00:50so on. There's nothing wrong with that. And I've been on Judiciary Committee now. This is my 25th

00:55year in Washington. I've spent every year looking at these institutions, and this is how they've

01:02always worked. Well, I don't think they've ever worked where you have somebody who makes a statement

01:07that I absolutely believe this was a free and fair election. And on that basis, the president says

01:15to the Justice Department, investigate this guy. That's not a crime. That's an opinion. And it's an

01:23opinion backed by 60 judges and the majority of Americans that this was a free and fair election.

01:30So because he disagreed with Donald Trump, he is now under criminal investigation. That's not

01:37happened before. You can't be a Californian and think that when people in both parties received

01:43anywhere from two to 10 to 12 ballots, when people all over the country received California ballots

01:49long after they'd left the state. 60 courts respectfully disagree with you.

01:53Congressman, we're not going to relitigate whether or not. We're not going to relitigate whether or not.

01:58Let's say you're relitigating it. I'm not. Congressman, can we stop this for a second?

02:03I hear you. And I know, look, you have an opinion about this. We have an opinion about this.

02:08The bigger issue, at least for me, is that when you look at what's going on right now,

02:14Donald Trump tried to bar the Associated Press from even being in the White House because he

02:22disagreed with them about the way they referenced the Gulf of Mexico. And the court said, come on,

02:29you can't do that. It's unconstitutional. Joe Biden may have weaponized the Justice Department,

02:33his administration, but this feels 20 times as much. It feels like you get in the crosshairs of

02:41Donald Trump. And he will then use the Justice Department with an attorney general who will do

02:46anything he wants to go after them. It's called weaponizing.

02:50Every president we can point to all the way back to George Washington and find something wrong with

02:56their wooden teeth, so to speak. Let's not let's look at another way. It has the process played out

03:03in some sort of an adverse way. The president is issuing executive orders. Some are sustained.

03:10Some are not. Has he tried to circumvent any of the executive orders when he's been pushed back by

03:16the by the courts? No. Did Joe Biden get told in no uncertain term by the high court that he couldn't

03:23give away 200 or 188 billion dollars in student loans to just forgive it without Congress? Yes.

03:29And what did he do? He gave away another eight billion dollars afterwards, finding a way to

03:34circumvent the clear order of the court. That's fair. That's fair. We can we can have challenges

03:40with both sides. And of course, I'm a Republican, a very proud Republican. Sure, I'm more likely to

03:45point out failures in the other party, but I also take heed of what I hear from the other party.

03:50And I will tell you, Congress will, in fact, do its job and we'll make sure, more importantly,

03:56that the courts are free to do their job and do it properly.

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