No one, that’s who
Federal judges have grown tired of the antics of Donald Trump’s Department of Justice under A.G. Pam Bondi. And yet the illegal antics continue. We’ll get to why in a minute.
Judge Zahid N. Quraishi on Monday ejected from his courtroom a prosecutor from the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office, the New York Times reported:
Judge Quraishi grew frustrated with the office’s head of appeals, Mark Coyne, who had not formally disclosed that he would appear, and fiercely interrogated a more junior prosecutor about whether the former interim U.S. attorney, Alina Habba, still had some role in operating the office.
Judge Quraishi eventually threw Mr. Coyne out.
The judge then ordered the three leaders of the New Jersey office, who last week were found to be occupying their positions unlawfully, to appear to testify about their office’s leadership structure. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed the unconventional three-person leadership team in December after Ms. Habba was disqualified. The leaders are Philip Lamparello, Jordan Fox and Ari Fontecchio.
It gets worse.
Last week, the judge who disqualified Ms. Habba, Matthew W. Brann, found that the office’s three-person leadership team was unlawful. He wrote that President Trump’s reliance on illegal maneuvers to appoint New Jersey’s top prosecutors might mean that “scores of dangerous criminals” could have cases dismissed or convictions reversed, because the law would be in their favor.
Quraishi dressed down the prosecution team for its agreeing to a lower sentence for a man accused of child pornography involving prepubescent children and bestiality.
The DOJ’s credibility is in the toilet.
But you knew that. What caught my attention as an exchange about that Wednesday afternoon during the second hour of “Deadline: White House.” Sarah Fitzpatrick of The Atlantic speaks to why Bondi’s DOJ and the trained lawyers in it continue to flaut the law despite their seeking a vocation based in it.
People are frightened, Fitzpatrick explains. A source told her that when people are under pressure, that is when character reveals itself. This is an administration determined to inflict retribution, public retribution, on anyone who gets sideways with Trump. It’s not simply a matter of professional consequences. With Trump’s inflamed MAGA base, Trump’s ire comes with the real threat of physical harm.
“Once safety gets engaged in the human brain,” Fitzpatrick reflects, “regardless of how educated, regardless of how well you know the law, that is a major factor that can override [better judgement].”
Or, Fitzpatrick doesn’t loop back to say, reveal someone’s true character.
The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol this morning, considers whether anyone inside his administration will tell Trump just how badly his war with Iran is going. Likely, anyone so bold would be immediately removed from the Oval Office.
Kristol presents a menu of disasters in the making, none of which any Trump adviser will tell him. (Fitzpatrick explained why above.) He writes:
Instead of receiving intelligence briefings, President Trump is watching Fox. And what he heard last night was his most influential aide, Stephen Miller, telling Laura Ingraham that “President Trump has calculated through every permutation and every degree of strategy,” and that we are en route to “an overwhelming victory.”
And so, as we find ourselves in an increasingly dangerous hole of our own making, we will keep on digging.
As always, there is no bottom. And as usual, no one in Congress in either party will march into the Oval Office and demand that grandpa hand over his car keys.