Jamie Raskin Lists Off Multiple Surprising Actions Taken By DOJ Since Pam Bondi Took Over

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At Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) decried the actions of the DOJ under AG Pam Bondi.

Transcript

00:00Gentle Lady Yields, chair recognizes the ranking member of the entire committee.

00:03Mr. Raskin.

00:04Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

00:07The Department of Justice announced that it would demote the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

00:16and not bring prosecutions there.

00:21It sacked 17 inspectors general when it started,

00:25people who saved us a combined $91 billion last year.

00:29And ferreting out waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption in the government.

00:35It pulled the plug on the corruption prosecution of Mayor Adams in New York

00:40after Mayor Adams agreed to engage in a political alliance with Donald Trump,

00:45which then prompted the resignation ultimately of six or seven attorneys,

00:52including the U.S. attorney for the Southern District, Danielle Sassoon,

00:57who was a conservative Federalist Society lawyer and a Republican.

01:04And her number two also quit, saying that you'd have to be a fool or a coward

01:14to give in to this kind of pressure.

01:15Then they decimated the Public Integrity Unit.

01:18They dismantled the Kleptocracy Unit in Department of Justice.

01:23They shut down other units focused on stopping foreign interference in American politics.

01:28Mr. Fox, why is prosecuting white-collar crime with specific enumerated offenses

01:39with the definite material elements in the crime,

01:43why is prosecuting white-collar crime important?

01:47Yeah, so I looked.

01:48It seems like there's about maybe 7 percent or give or take of crimes that DOJ prosecutes.

01:53It seems like that will fall under the white-collar category.

01:56I think, you know, there's a lot of the work that the federal government prosecutes

02:02are things that far exceed the doctrine of enumerated powers,

02:04are things that, you know, the federal government has absolutely zero business getting involved in.

02:08I think white-collar crime is one that arguably can fall under the ambit of the federal government,

02:14and it's something that is important to, you know, discourage political corruption,

02:18make sure that people are, you know, being prosecuted

02:21because the Department of Justice has evidence that they committed a crime,

02:24and they're not being prosecuted because of, you know, what their political views are,

02:29or that they're not being let off because of what their political views are.

02:32You know, people don't trust a system that targets people or that ignores people

02:37based upon the views they espouse or the people they support.

02:40So do you think that undermines public trust in the justice system?

02:43Oh, dramatically.

02:44It sends out the message that we have this two-track system,

02:50one for people who engage in kind of the run-of-the-mill state law crimes like assault or theft or robbery,

03:01and then one for white-collar criminals in the government or in corporations or in politics

03:07who are able to get away with it if they know the president or they know the right person.

03:13Yeah, I think that's right.

03:13And it also goes back to the question Ranking Member McBath asked,

03:16which is, you know, about are they going to target people who they know will fight back

03:21versus won't or won't have their resources to?

03:23So I think, you know, that's all very related there.

03:25Have you studied the whole question of whether there is systematic inclusion of a mens rea requirement

03:35so we're not putting people in jail for most regulatory offenses?

03:41Yeah, so a lot of regulatory offenses and, frankly, also a lot of statutory crimes don't include a mens rea.

03:47The theft charge that I talked about before in the Moore and Mansell case,

03:51if I were to take Mr. Canapara's water bottle and give it to Professor Turley,

03:55we're on federal property, technically I could be charged.

03:58That's preposterous.

04:00No reasonable person would ever think that's theft.

04:02But without an actual explanation as to what theft is that I actually intended to, you know,

04:07take his wallet and bring it home with me, people would, yeah,

04:11they would absolutely, you know, fall victim to these types of prosecutions,

04:14which dramatically undermines trust in the system.

04:17Yeah, I understand that the chairman and I think Ms. McBath,

04:21have this Count the Crimes Act, which suggests that we don't even know how many crimes we have.

04:27There's been such a radical proliferation of offenses throughout the federal code.

04:33But do you think it would be advisable for us, once we've counted the crimes,

04:37to propose a Cut the Crimes Act,

04:41where we get rid of a lot of the offenses that transform Malum prohibitum regulatory crimes

04:51into real criminal offenses that we, most people would think, should apply only to Malum in say?

04:59Yes, certainly.

05:00I know the chairman also has the Mens Rea Reform Act.

05:03I think those two things in tandem, if you set a default Mens Rea that way, you know,

05:08we're not sweeping people into the criminal justice system over things they didn't know would be crimes.

05:13And then also, I'm not sure it's actually possible to count all the crimes,

05:16but assuming we can do that, then yeah,

05:18then we're able to sort of come to a consensus as to what doesn't belong.

05:22But I would also say if we're not able to do that,

05:24there's other changes we could do, like I have an idea that we could just inform jurors

05:28that they have the power to acquit against the evidence when justice requires.

05:32So in a case where the Department of Justice brings a charge,

05:36like the case I discussed before, where, you know,

05:39any rational person would think it's absurd, the jury can be like,

05:42you know what, we don't agree with the defense theory, this is nonsense, we're going to acquit.

05:46And that's a power they still have.

05:47And I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman,

05:48I don't want to commit a criminal infraction here by going over my time.

05:52It's too late.

05:52Too late, yeah.

05:54It's too late.

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