Trump Pressures DOJ to Target Political Enemies: “Unprecedented”

MICHEL MARTIN: Thanks Christiane. Brendan Ballou, thanks so much for joining us once again.

 

BRENDAN BALLOU: Thank you.

 

MARTIN: Just to remind, you are a former federal prosecutor. You actually prosecuted cases from the January 6th attack. It’s one of the reasons you left government because of the way that things have transpired since. A number of people, analysts, people like yourself, people who understand how the Department of Justice has worked, is supposed to work, are calling this an extraordinary moment. Why are they saying that?

 

BALLOU: Well, we’re watching the increasingly political nature of the Department of Justice and the collapse of the credibility of the Department of Justice. You know, the DOJ is unlike other agencies. It’s not like NASA that has spaceships  or Department of Defense that has, you know, tanks. The only thing the Justice Department has is its credibility. And to see so many attacks on that credibility so quickly it’s extraordinary. And I worry that the Justice Department that I knew may no longer exist or won’t exist very soon.

 

MARTIN: Did you think it would be different? I mean, people might remember that, President Trump initially nominated a Congressman, Matt Gaetz, to be the head of Justice Department. It became clear that that was, he would, he could not win confirmation. The current Attorney General Pam Bondi is a, is a prosecutor of experience. Did you think it would be different?

 

BALLOU: Maybe I was being overly optimistic or naive, but I thought that there would be at least two limits on this president’s intervention in the Justice Department. The first related to January 6th, which is, you know, as soon as Donald Trump got reelected as president, you know, I assumed that some portion of the rioters would get pardoned. But you know, Donald Trump campaigned on a pro-cop agenda. And I assume that that agenda would limit his decision to pardon, for instance, rioters that attacked police officers. So I thought that that would be one way that Trump would be insulated or be contained. 

The other way is purely outta self-interest, which is the Department of Justice only works if it’s able to convince judges and juries to agree with it. And when DOJ becomes increasingly political or appears to become increasingly political, it loses that ability to persuade. And so at some level, I thought that the White House would want to keep some distance from DOJ solely, that it, so that it could be more effective. But obviously that’s not the case.

 

MARTIN: What are the, what are the sort of the data points that lead you to that conclusion?

 

BALLOU: Well, you know, you look at the appointment of obviously unqualified US attorneys to various positions in the Eastern District of Virginia, in New Jersey. These people have literally no prosecutorial experience, but because of their personal connections to the president, they’re getting these incredibly important jobs. 

 

You see it in the fact that certain kinds of crimes simply aren’t being pursued anymore. You know, when you’re talking about foreign bribery, when we’re talking about acting as an agent of a foreign power, when you’re talking about being a Russian kleptocrat, you know, these were things that the Department of Justice used to prosecute — no longer. And I think you see it in the fact that the president is explicitly calling out that he plans to or wants to prosecute his political enemies.

 

MARTIN: So there are two things that, that have been in the news. The first was, and you alluded to this, US attorney, Erik Siebert in Virginia refused to bring charges against Letitia James. She’s the Attorney General of New York State and James Comey, the former FBI director. And he said Siebert resigned. He was clearly pressured to resign, because he couldn’t find a reason to bring charges against Letitia James. 

And so then this weekend, President Trump posted on his social media platform directly addressing the Attorney General Pam Bondi saying quote, “Nothing is being done. What about Comey? Adam Shifty Schiff” — he’s the current senator from California — “Letitia. They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. No, I fired him. And there’s a great case and we can’t delay any longer. Justice must be served now” in all caps with multiple sort of exclamation marks. So, gosh, how unusual is it for a president to be talking about demanding prosecutions of specific individuals? 

 

BALLOU: It seems entirely unprecedented. I’ve certainly never heard of it. I’ve never heard of anybody that’s heard of it. At one level it’s incredibly heartbreaking to see a, a post like that, to see the president explicitly try to use the Justice Department as a weapon against his political foes. 

A little bit more tactically, I think if you are the defense attorney for Tish James or Adam Schiff or James Comey a post like that is incredibly helpful to your future defense. You know, one thing that defendants will often try to bring is a claim of what’s called selective prosecution. This idea that the government is prosecuting you unfairly for an impermissible purpose. Now the challenge with those sorts of claims typically is it’s very hard to show the government’s intent. Well, here the president just revealed the government’s intent. So if the President’s goal is to successfully prosecute his political enemies, I think he made that project harder for himself.

 

MARTIN: Well, well, the other thing is, you, you mentioned defendants. He says that “they’re all guilty as hell,” but he doesn’t say of what.

 

BALLOU: Exactly. I mean, it’s a, it’s a defendant in search of a crime. You know, it’s, it seems clear that he wants the Department of Justice to be an arm of a larger project of retribution. You know, I think the one good sign here is you look at how grand juries are responding to these sorts of threats. You know, there’s the old saw about that a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich. Well, at the District of Columbia, the US attorney is really struggling to indict ham sandwiches and, you know, in a perhaps unprecedented set of cases has failed to secure indictments repeatedly. And so I think that these sorts of posts are both gonna help defense attorneys, but they’re also gonna make grand juries more skeptical and make it harder for this administration to secure indictments in the first place.

You know, there have been a number of cases now where the grand jury in DC has refused to indict, you know, proposed cases that US Attorney Jeanine Pirro has brought. You know, what I think this suggests is that at least in the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice is rapidly eviscerating its own credibility and struggling to persuade grand juries to indict. I think it’ll be interesting to see with, you know, more posts like this from the president, with more proposed political prosecutions, whether other jurisdictions start doing the same thing.

 

MARTIN: But I have to ask you whether the purpose of these kinds of statements, investigations, even prosecutions, should they occur, is it really to get convictions or is it really more to make people’s lives uncomfortable, unpleasant? 

it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend yourself in a case, especially a high profile case with a full weight of the federal government is being brought to bear, okay? So, I have to wonder, do you really think convictions are the point, or is it just to make people’s lives hell?

 

BALLOU: You know, I can’t predict what the president thinks internally, but it certainly seems like he wants to prosecute these people. He wants to imprison them. You know, he explicitly says that he’s trying to get revenge for the fact that he was prosecuted. 

I completely agree that simply being investigated simply being indicted is incredibly stressful, and it’s incredibly expensive. You know, defending yourself even if you aren’t convicted, even if you don’t go to jail or prison. That said, every time this administration brings an unsuccessful case, it loses more credibility and makes it harder for it to pursue political prosecutions in the future. So this is another example where I think this administration might be undermine its own objectives.

 

MARTIN: You made the point about people taking positions in the Justice Department for which they are not qualified, but it is also the case —  or at least don’t have any prior experience. But it’s also the case that there are lawyers leaving who have specific credentials. And to that end, I mean the public integrity section, which was tasked with prosecuting corruption, has been reportedly reduced from more than 30 attorneys to just two. And I wonder what that says to you about the kinds of crimes that will be prosecuted or even investigated.

 

BALLOU: Yeah. I think the news that the public integrity section of the Justice Department is down to just two attorneys shows that certain kinds of crimes and certain kinds of criminals are beyond the reach of the law in this administration. I will add that, you know, when you’re talking about an exodus of experience from the Department of Justice, one of the questions that I think every attorney in government needs to ask themselves right now — every employee in government needs to ask themselves right now — is whether they can be more effective by staying or by leaving. You know, I think that there’s always an argument that by staying in the Department of Justice or staying in government, you can stop the worst impulses of some of these political actors. But in a world where this administration is simply gonna fire those who disagree with them arguably by staying in government, you’re simply adding your own credibility inadvertently to these highly political actions. And so it’s a very tough decision, but I think everybody in government needs to be asking themselves, how can they be most effective in maintaining the work, the dignity, and the reputation of the government they work for.

 

MARTIN: You’ve said that this is, quote, “a great time to be a rich criminal.” What did you mean by that?

 

BALLOU: Well, it goes back to what this administration is choosing to prosecute and what this administration is choosing not to prosecute. It is choosing not to prosecute people that may have committed crimes under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits foreign bribery, under the Foreign Agent’s Registration Act, which prohibits acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign power. It’s disbanded the klepto capture task force that was meant to go after Russian oligarchs. So, you know, in all these different ways, if you are a rich criminal in America, it is a fabulous time to be working right now. 

 

MARTIN: Do you think that, that people understand the, the, the consequences of this or the relevance of this to their own lives? And if not, who, who would, who’s gonna make that case to them?

 

BALLOU: Maybe I’m being overly optimistic here, but the signs from the grand jury in D.C.,  the fact that the D.C. U.S. attorney is struggling to secure all of these indictments is one piece of evidence that people who aren’t particularly engaged in politics — you know, grand jurors, you know, are rarely lawyers, you know, they’re regular folks that exist in the district — that they are seeing how seemingly corrupt or misguided these prosecutions are, I think is really encouraging. In a time when so many guardrails that we expected to constrain this president have completely fallen off, whether it’s the Supreme Court, whether it’s Congress, whether it’s corporate America, the fact that you’re seeing ordinary citizens resist this, I think is deeply encouraging. And it suggests that maybe the tools that we thought were gonna be effective in fighting against corruption and fighting against Illiberalism aren’t gonna work. But other tools and regular people might succeed.

 

MARTIN: is it possible that a lot of people look at this and think, Well, that’s just the way it always worked, and it’s just more obvious now that rich people, well-connected people, there was one set of rules for them and that other people had different sets of rules? Is it possible that many people think that’s just the way it’s always been? And this is just more obvious now? 

 

BALLOU: I can’t speak to, to, you know, public polling data on this. And you know, what people generally feel about the current way that the Justice Department is being used to go after political enemies and shield political friends. And I think that there’s an argument to be made that, you know, corruption is a part — is an unfortunate part of American history. So I can’t speak to whether or not there’s a change here or a feeling that things are truly different. But again, this is maybe an opportunity for hope, which is, if this is a continuation of past corruption, it’s occurring on such a vastly larger scale that it’s hard for people to ignore. And when it’s hard for people to ignore, maybe they’re gonna stand up and actually try to resist it. So at some level, this might be an opportunity to make some big structural changes.

 

MARTIN: Why should people care about this? I mean, a lot of people might think this isn’t gonna affect me. What would you say to somebody who felt that way?

 

BALLOU: A couple of things. So one, even if you aren’t particularly political, even if you aren’t breaking the law, how the government treats people, how it treats both political friends and enemies matters enormously because due process and civil rights either apply to everyone or they apply to no one. Because if certain people are accepted from due process, it means that the president is going to be the one who decides who gets rights and who gets treated fairly. And we don’t want that. So that’s the first thing. 

The second thing is, we are already starting to see this corruption infecting so many parts of every American’s life. You know, you’re watching the Jimmy Kimmel drama unfold right now. A lot of people watch Jimmy, Jimmy Kimmel, you’re watching this happen in certain favored industries get protection when you have crypto scammers paying $5 million to get their investigations by the government dropped. When you’re seeing banks pay a million dollars to get their consent decrees lifted, you know, this kind of corruption affects every person and it affects them every day.

 

MARTIN: How are you, I don’t know, thinking about all this? I mean, you, you took an oath, right? You passed the bar. You took an oath to uphold the standards of your profession. You went to the Justice Department, you took an oath to uphold the Constitution. And  there are a lot of people like you who thought they were doing justice. And I’m just wondering, how are you, how are you thinking about this you’ve mentioned several times, a a sort of a sense of optimism. I’m just curious where that comes from?

 

BALLOU: Well, two things. One, you know, how am I feeling, how am my colleagues feeling? You know, I can’t speak for everybody, but it is obviously incredibly disheartening to watch the Justice Department be abused in this way and used as a political tool. You know, it’s certainly the case that, you know, there are instances of corruption in the past, you know, from both parties, you know, from Watergate to you know, Lyndon Johnson and beyond. This is qualitatively different. You don’t have a history of a president pardoning rioters who attack police because they support him politically. You don’t have instances of allegations of people accepting literal cash in paper bags and then staying in office. You don’t have examples of a president with business dealings where foreign governments work with them or give them literally jets in order to get favored foreign policy. (23:34): So we’re seeing things that are qualitatively different and on a massive scale. 

In terms of my optimism, what I think is because this corruption is happening on such a massive scale, it is increasingly hard for anybody to ignore. And in a world where the Department of Justice is not interested in prosecuting corruption and trying to build a fair democracy, I think other institutions are going to step up. 

You know, if DOJ is not interested in prosecuting crypto scammers who pay to get their investigations dropped, well, competitors or consumers who are harmed by that behavior can sue in state and federal court to try to get justice. And so, again, I have a sense of optimism here because I think that people are increasingly engaged and I think that engaged people have a lot of tools to take action here.

 

MARTIN: Brendan Ballou, thank you so much for speaking with us.

BALLOU: Thank you.