Tag: Merrick Garland

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GOP Justice Department Religion

Garland Goes NUCLEAR On Republican For Accusing Him Of Religious Discrimination

Attorney General Merrick Garland went off on Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday when the congressman suggested that the Justice Department discriminates against Catholics who are opposed to abortion.

Van Drew began by remarking, “The two-tiered system of justice is clear and it’s clear to the American public. And the buck stops with the man in charge. That man is you. The actions of the DOJ are on you. The decline of Americans trust in our federal law enforcement is on you. The political weaponization of the DOJ is on you. Attorney General, I need a simple yes or no to the following. Just yes or no because we don’t have much time. Do you agree that traditional Catholics are violent extremists, yes or no?”

The AG replied,  “Let me answer what you’ve said in that long list of-“

“Attorney General, I control the time. I’m gonna ask you to answer the questions I ask,” Van Drew insisted.

Garland: “You’ve controlled the time by asking me a substantial number of things and I –”

Van Drew:  “I didn’t ask you those things, I made a statement. Attorney General, through the chair I ask you, do you agree that traditional Catholics are violent extremists? Answer the question.”

“I have no idea what traditional means here, let me just-” Garland insisted before Van Drew cut him off again.

“Catholics! Catholics that go to church.”

Garland: “May I answer your question? The idea that someone with my family background would discriminate against any religion is so outrageous! So absurd!”

Garland’s family fled from Russia due to anti-Semitism, and the fact that Van Drew would ask such a question clearly infuriated him.

Van Drew continued to press.

“Mr. Attorney General, it was your FBI that did this. It was your FBI that was sending — and we have the memos, we have the emails –were sending undercover agents into Catholic churches.”

The AG replied, “Both I and the director of the FBI have said that we were appalled by that memo.”

Mediaite notes that Van Drew was clearly referring to recent convictions of pro-life Catholics who blockaded family planning clinics:

Garland and Van Drew continued to spar over the DOJ’s treatment of religious Catholics. The former’s DOJ has been criticized for its zealous prosecution of pro-life activists. Last week, two 70+ year old women were found guilty of being “engaged in a conspiracy to create a blockade at the reproductive health care clinic to prevent the clinic from providing, and patients from receiving, reproductive health services.”

Here’s the video:

 

Categories
Congress Fox News GOP Justice Department

WATCH: Jim Jordan Gets Nervous When Maria Bartiromo Urges Him To Impeach Merrick Garland

As eager as he usually seems when it comes to attacking everything President Joe Biden or his administration does, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) seemed to get more than a bit nervous when urged to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland by Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.

Bartiromo, host of “Sunday Morning Futures,” told Jordan:

“The first thing that Republicans should do when they take back Congress is impeach Merrick Garland. What are your plans for Merrick Garland?”

The Ohio Republican replied:

“Well, you, you — they’re right that we have to look real closely at the Justice Department. And I think we may have to do some major changes. There may need to be structural changes at the FBI. I mean, you may need — the Washington field office has way too much power. You may need to disperse power around.”

Jordan added that he believed disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had been treated unfairly even though he lied to the FBI, which just so happens to be a felony:

“Because we know they went to set up Michael Flynn back in the early days of the Trump administration. So, maybe we need to deal with their funding.”

Set him up? He was asked questions and he gave untruthful responses. That’s a crime.

While he was at it, Jordan also suggested that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act shouldn’t be reauthorized because it was used to investigate possible collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

“And then there’s also the impeachment question which I think the committee will look at. That will be a decision for the entire conference under then-Speaker McCarthy.”

The radicals in the GOP (which is now the vast majority of the party) have said ever since Biden took office that they plan to try and impeach him if they win the midterm elections. It’s yet another reason they need to be soundly defeated at the ballot box and never again given power.

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

DOJ May Move To Have Trump-Appointed Judge Removed From Secret Documents Case

Now that U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon has ruled that a special master will be appointed to determine if any of the classified documents former president Donald Trump was hoarding at his Mar-a-Lago resort are protected by attorney-client or executive privilege, the Justice Department has until Friday to appeal that ruling.

But it may not be enough to merely appeal to a higher court, according to three legal experts who say Attorney General Merrick Garland should move to have Judge Cannon removed from the case completely since she clearly has a conflict of interest.

On MSNBC Wednesday evening, Andrew Weissmann, who served as general counsel for the FBI and was also a prosecutor on Robert Mueller’s team, said the DOJ has a clear case to make:

“This is like a thief taking documents then saying, ‘Judge, I want them back.’ This is a complete farce. And to have somebody like Laurence Tribe and Neal Katyal have to address this, as if it’s a serious argument, just tells you the depths that we are in. And just to be very serious for a moment the notion that in the documents there are state secrets involving nuclear capabilities — it means that there is present harm to national security. Our allies and countries that want to quietly cooperate with us are looking at all of this and making decisions about whether they should continue to do so if we cannot keep secrets. That is how we protect this country. It is how we thwart terrorist attacks. It is how we conduct important, lifesaving undercover operations.”

Neil Katyal, former acting Solicitor General in the Obama administration, then joined the debate:

“Every day, every week, we learn a new fact about just how bad Trump’s behavior was. Now, it is nuclear secrets. That also underscores just how bad the decision was by this judge in Florida. So, appointing a special master is one thing, but stopping a criminal investigation of this magnitude in its tracks because you think, as a federal judge, that some documents might be privileged. That is insane. That is a bazooka when one needs, at most, a scalpel. And if you have lost Bill Barr, and Bill Barr is — God. That is….”

Katyal added:

“She pleaded herself out of her own court. Because she planted remedies to the special master via the Presidential Records Act. And she has a footnote on this, Footnote 16, which says basically, the Presidential Records Act says that you can only bring these cases in Washington D.C. and only Washington D.C. judges can oversee them. So, that maybe that’s what the Justice Department, I think, should do here. Get this case before judges who are experts on presidential records and executive privilege and the like.”

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage Justice Department

Trump’s Latest Court Filing ‘Sort Of Asks For Garland To Prosecute Him’: Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe

Earlier today, attorneys for disgraced former president Donald Trump filed a lawsuit asking a judge to appoint a special master who would review the documents seized from the failed ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort.

CNBC reports on the suit:

Trump’s lawsuit, which suggests the Aug. 8 FBI raid was politically motivated, also asks that the Department of Justice be blocked from “further review of seized materials” from his Mar-a-Lago residence until the so-called special master is appointed to review the documents.

Special masters are appointed in criminal cases when there is a concern that some material seized by authorities should not be viewed by investigators because it is protected by attorney-client privilege or other factors that weigh against it being used in a prosecution.

But according to Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe, the lawsuit is “very strange” and likely to make it more certain that Attorney General Merrick Garland prosecutes Trump, telling MSNBC host Joy Reid:

“It’s very strange. For one thing, it’s filed not on behalf of private citizen Trump but filed on behalf of President Donald J. Trump. You know, it’s never been clear that he distinguishes between himself as a private citizen and himself as president. That may help explain just psychologically why he feels he’s entitled to all these papers. He says they’re his. That’s one thing that’s really strange. Another thing that’s quite strange, you mentioned yourself just a minute ago: he waited a couple of weeks. So, it’s sort of too late to ask for some new special master.”

Tribe also noted that Trump attacks the Justice Department for taking three days to obtain and execute the search warrant:

“Then, finally, it’s strange, not so much what it says but what it doesn’t say,” he continued. “It doesn’t really give any good reasons for thinking this warrant was illegal. In fact, one of the amazing things that I agree with is a statement on page 13 that President Trump, he still calls himself President Trump, should not be treated differently from any other citizen. Finally, he gets that right. Any other citizen who took top-secret material to not just a private home but a resort, like Mar-a-Lago, which has been penetrated by Chinese spies and perhaps by others, would be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. So, he is sort of asking Merrick Garland to prosecute him. Thank you, Mr. Trump, I won’t call him President Trump.

“If he’s being treated not as president but as a citizen, he’s got to be indicted. Otherwise, the rule of law just doesn’t mean anything.”

 

Categories
Crime Donald Trump Justice Department WTF?!

Trump Tried To Get A Threatening Message To AG Garland After Mar-a-Lago Search: Report

Before Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed the contents of the search warrant that was executed at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club on August 8, the disgraced former president attempted to pass a threatening message along to the top law enforcement officer in the country.

Citing The New York Times, Business Insider reports:

Trump wanted Garland to know that he had been speaking with people around the country and that they were enraged by the FBI search.

“The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?” was the message Trump wanted to be conveyed to Garland, a person familiar with the exchange told the paper.

A person close to the former president reached out to a Justice Department official to give Garland the message, the paper reported. It is not clear if the message reached him.

Many who were asked about the message said it was a clear threat, intended to convey a warning to Garland that if he pressed further, the ex-president and his supporters might just stir up violence around the country in response.

Robert Maguire, a research director at the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, noted:

“Just a normal former president hinting to the current attorney general of the United States—who was about to make an announcement about the investigation into the former president—that he can fan the flames of violence, before asking ‘What can I do to reduce the heat?'”

On Thursday, Garland announced that he had personally approved the search warrant that resulted in over a dozen boxes of allegedly classified and top secret documents being taken into federal custody.

If it can be proven that Trump knew he wasn’t supposed to keep the materials in an unsecured location, he could be charged under the Espionage Act and sentenced to 10 years for every document he had in his possession.