Here’s the NY Times digging for Controversy in the Age Of Trump
Fearful of Trump’s Attacks, Justice Dept. Lawyers Worry Barr Will Leave Them Exposed
In an email a few days ago to the 270 lawyers he oversees, Nicola T. Hanna, the United States attorney in Los Angeles, offered a message of reassurance: I am proud of the work you do, he wrote.
Other U.S. attorneys in the Justice Department’s far-flung 93 field offices relayed similar messages of encouragement after President Trump’s efforts to influence a politically fraught case provoked the kind of consternation the department has rarely seen since the Watergate era. “All I have to say,†another United States attorney wrote to his staff, “is keep doing the right things for the right reasons.â€
But the fact that the department’s 10,000-odd lawyers needed reassurances seemed like cause for worry all by itself.
In more than three dozen interviews in recent days, lawyers across the federal government’s legal establishment wondered aloud whether Mr. Trump was undermining the Justice Department’s treasured reputation for upholding the law without favor or political bias — and whether Attorney General William P. Barr was able or willing to protect it.
Well, that’s interesting. First, it seems more like they meant to share this with the media, rather than being anything internal, so, right there that is political. Second, the entire story is meant to be a hit-job on Trump and Barr, with not one current DOJ employee needing reassurance named. Do they exist? It’s all anonymous, which is par for the course.
Third, what of when the Attorney General attempted to meet secretly with the husband of an investigation target on a tarmac? The media made excuses for that, and we didn’t get any articles about DOJ employees being concerned. Nor about when the DOJ, including the Director of the FBI, ignored actual federal laws, serious felonies, when they declined to charge Hillary Clinton, nor even put the fruits of the investigation in front of a federal grand jury. Which would have happened had you or I done half of what she did.
How about spying on reporters? Operation Fast and Furious? Blowing off the prosecution of the New Black Panthers thugs blocking a voting office with clubs. AG Eric Holder being Obama’s “wingman.” The entire department was politicized, and you had employees working to actively defeat Donald Trump. Perhaps the folks from high to low in, specifically, the DOJ itself and the FBI should have been worried about what was going on during 8 years of Obama using it.
