Trump's Justice Department

Two steps forward and one step back

The New York Times is, as ever, outraged that the Trump administration has different priorities from the ones they were expecting from Kamala Harris.

Those elections are so pesky, especially when you’re convinced you’re never going to lose.

Hence the Times’ story leads with this:

A top Trump appointee in the Justice Department ordered an aggressive investigation in the last several months of student protesters at Columbia University, raising anger and alarm among career prosecutors and investigators who saw the demand as politically motivated and lacking legal merit, people familiar with the episode said.

The demand for the inquiry into students who protested Israel’s conduct of the conflict in Gaza also prompted pushback from a federal magistrate judge, who believed some of the steps being sought by the official, Emil Bove III, were unjustified and might violate the First Amendment, the people said.

The breadth of the investigation, conducted by the Justice Department’s civil rights division, has not been previously reported. The ensuing clash highlights the tensions roiling the department as administration officials seek to enact President Trump’s agenda. That bid includes redirecting the civil rights division away from its traditional approach of protecting the rights of minority groups to a new mission of fulfilling a campaign promise to crack down on student protesters amid accusations of rampant antisemitism on college campuses.

Let me try to translate that last part for you: “…redirecting the civil rights division away from its traditional approach of protecting the rights of minority groups from whom the Democratic Party draws a heavy share of its vote to a new mission of fulfilling a campaign promise to crack down on student and non-student rioters amid extensive evidence of pervasive, sometimes violent antisemitism on college campuses, such as that documented at length by the Harvard report — now that antisemitism has found a home with the Left.”

Those types of demands from political appointees at the Justice Department are part of the reason there has been an exodus of lawyers from the division in recent weeks, according to current and former officials.

Thank you God. As Paul and I know from both direct and indirect experience (I spent years working inside Main Justice), the Civil Rights Division has been known for decades as a liberal preserve, in its own immovable way the capital of the deep state. If it’s getting cleaned out now, it’s long overdue. Career civil servants were never supposed to be the tip of an ideological spear (something the NYT and other liberal organs shout at ten zillion decibels — when more convenient to their cause du jour, that is).

The investigation began shortly after masked protesters barged into Milbank Hall, a building at the Columbia-affiliated Barnard College, on Feb. 26 to demonstrate against the expulsion of students who had been accused of disrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class. Video shows students pushing past a security guard and occupying a hallway. School officials said at the time that the guard was assaulted and taken to the hospital for minor injuries.

Now why should forcibly disrupting classes (classes and almost everything else at Columbia are flush with federal money) prompt an investigation from federal authorities? Let me ask that a different way: If a University of Alabama class titled a “History of Jim Crow” were forcibly disrupted by the the White Citizens Council 2.0, would the Times think that might be worth a look from the Civil Rights Division? Indeed, would the Times be demanding a look from the Civil Rights Division?

And there’s this too: Although, as the first part of the Times’ story shows, the Left criticizes the investigation as “lacking legal merit,” how would it know that at this point? An investigation is an investigation, not a conclusion. We don’t know if the investigation will find actionable conduct; indeed, we don’t know what it will find at all. Ask Robert Mueller.

People with something to hide have been insisting since forever that there’s nothing to see here, go away. The Supreme Court, per Justice Robert Jackson, gave the answer three-quarters of a century ago in a case named US v. Morton Salt, 338 U.S. 632, 642-3 (1950) (emphasis added):

The only power that is involved here is the power to get information
from those who best can give it and who are most interested in not
doing so. Because judicial power is reluctant, if not unable, to
summon evidence until it is shown to be relevant to issues in
litigation, it does not follow that an administrative agency charged
with seeing that the laws are enforced may not have and exercise
powers of original inquiry. It has a power of inquisition, if one
chooses to call it that, which is not derived from the judicial
function. It is more analogous to the Grand Jury, which does not
depend on a case or controversy for power to get evidence, but can
investigate merely on suspicion that the law is being violated, or
even just because it wants assurance that it is not.

So, with apologies to the newly and indignantly uncurious Left — uncurious about the resurgent antisemitism it pretends not to sponsor — Trump’s Justice Department has every right, and in my view good reason, aggressively to conduct this investigation.

I should add that a mirror-image of the Left’s lack of curiosity is on display as respects the Department’s recent action in re-assigning FBI agents — conspicuously identifying themselves as such, see below — who participated in a public Kneel-for-George-Floyd demonstration in Minneapolis during Trump’s first term.

When I say “Kneel-for-George-Floyd” demonstration, I’m trying to be charitable; the demonstration could just as easily be seen as a “Contempt-for-America” fest. In no event, in my nearly 25 years at DOJ, have I ever heard of such a demonstration being part of an FBI agent’s duties, still less her duties on taxpayer time, on public property and dressed conspicuously in FBI gear.

The Washington Post is suitably outraged, however, noting in its story:

Conservatives have pointed to the photo, taken during President Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, as proof that the bureau harbors a liberal agenda. The reassignments have angered current and former colleagues, who say that FBI agents are not trained for riot control and that these officers were unjustly punished for trying to defuse a tense situation. Some of those interviewed, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution, said they see it as another example of the Trump administration punishing personnel whom it considers part of the liberal “deep state.”

OK, let’s try that paragraph in annotated form:

The reassignments have angered current and former colleagues, who say that FBI agents are not trained for riot control…

Is there any “riot control” going on here? It looks to me like lunch break.

…and that these officers were unjustly punished for trying to defuse a tense situation.

Where in this picture is the “tense situation”? What you actually see is what you think you see — a political demonstration. And FBI agents have a perfect right to do political demonstrations — but on their on time and property and not in uniform, which can be taken to imply government endorsement.

Some of those interviewed, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution…

Translation: Refusing to identify themselves because they know full well that it’s improper to do political demonstrations in public, in uniform, and hence wanting to evade the (minor) consequences they’ve earned.

…said they see it as another example of the Trump administration punishing personnel whom it considers part of the liberal “deep state.”

Gads, why would anyone see genuflecting to George Floyd — a long-time druggie and criminal as well as a victim — as showing alliance with the deep state? Well, a critic might say, it’s not really showing sympathy for Floyd; instead, it’s just supporting the idea of consequences for the policemen who killed him. But if you think about it, that rationale’ just digs the hole deeper: Having federal law enforcement officers put on a public demonstration showing support for the prosecution of the defendants is at least arguably a breach of the defendants’ ability to find an unbiased jury pool — something any FBI agent certainly would know.

When the agents knelt, their colleagues were divided. Some thought that they should not have knelt because it sent a message that law enforcement was not in control of the situation, and that it could be viewed as a political statement in support of the Black Lives Matter protesters, the former official said.

Other colleagues defended them, arguing that they were placed in an untenable situation and that they made the gesture as way to de-escalate, the former official said.

Sometimes you just have to accept the evidence in front of your eyeballs, even (indeed, especially) when the WaPo tells you it’s really the man in the moon. Look at the picture. It has zip to do with “de-escalation.” It’s a political display.

***********************************************************************************************

In my opening, I said that DOJ had taken two steps forward and one step back. The step back, which I’ll mention only briefly although it’s appallingly bad, is Stephen Miller’s remark that the Administration is thinking of suspending the writ of habeas corpus.

Technically, that’s not on DOJ, since Miller is Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House and not at the Justice Department. But that’s not really an excuse. If anything, it’s all the more reason for him to zip it.

I won’t go into the strong historical and constitutional pedigree of habeas corpus, partly because I don’t need to with this audience. I will just say that we’ve seen yet another reason for the Administration, from President Trump on down, to put a lid on it when you don’t know what you’re talking about and when, to the small extent you do, it shouldn’t happen and isn’t going to happen, as you and everyone else full well knows.

Greenland, Canada, massive tariffs on friends as well as enemies???!!! Now habeas?

When I was at the White House, I quickly learned the virtues of keeping my mouth shut. The current bunch urgently needs to wake up to the same lesson.