00:00And for more, let's go to New York City and former federal prosecutor Frederick Davis,
00:04lecture in law at Columbia University. Thank you for speaking with us here on France 24.
00:10It's good to be here. How are you?
00:11I'm OK. I wanted to ask you, then, this is coming just days after the Justice Department
00:21said it would not cooperate with Minnesota's probe into an ICE agent's shooting of a woman,
00:29a motorist. Is the Justice Department an entity onto itself at this point?
00:38Well, look, this attack at the Federal Reserve is a very, very big deal. This is going to have
00:45consequences. And it pulls together two streams that we've seen under Trump. One is the independence
00:50of the Fed, which is extremely important. Not only the American economy, but possibly the world
00:57economy really depends upon that independence being maintained. And secondly, as you point
01:03out, the Justice Department of the United States, where I happily used to work many years ago,
01:08has really become a political arm of the Trump administration. And we're seeing that constantly.
01:14We're seeing that in the really entirely made-up investigations against our Attorney General here
01:20in New York, Laetitia James, which has now been dismissed, the attack on former FBI agent,
01:26Director Comey. And they're just shameless, as far as I'm concerned, at coming up with pretextual
01:32bases to use the criminal justice system.
01:35When you were working at the Justice Department, did you ever get calls from the executive branch
01:41of government asking you gently to do this or that?
01:45Zero. It just never happened. Look, let me be very candid. I'm sort of a Democrat. I mean,
01:50that's been all my life. I've worked long and hard at the Justice Department reporting to people
01:55from a completely different political party. And it just never came up. It was just not an issue
02:00whatsoever. And that's the tradition that I grew up in, and many of my colleagues grew up in,
02:07of the independence of the criminal justice function, which is absolutely critical. And it's
02:12just disappearing before our eyes. There are two Republican senators who now say that they will
02:19not approve any more federal appointments that come their way if the Federal Reserve loses its
02:30independence. Are you expecting the other branches of government to push back?
02:37Well, we'll see. There is a consensus that's very strongly held about the independence of the
02:45Fed. And this has been a nonpartisan issue until very, very recently. So I would hope that we hear
02:52a strong support for the independence of the Fed from across the government, including from the
02:58Republican Party.
02:59Up to now, the U.S. president has tried not only to get rid of Jay Powell, but also one of the members
03:08of the Federal Reserve, Lisa Cook. He's failed so far. Does that mean that the institutions are holding?
03:17Well, we'll see. You know, the Lisa Cook case is an example of what I'm talking about. As far as I can tell,
03:25the notion that she committed a crime is borderline ridiculous. What the Trump administration has said,
03:33as they have said against other people, is that years ago on an unrelated matter, she made a mistake,
03:40or more than that, that she allegedly lied on an application for a mortgage. That's exactly the
03:46claim that Trump seems to make against people when he can't come up with something better.
03:50He alleged that against my attorney general, Letitia James. And it got thrown out. It's got
03:55no support. So the Supreme Court is hearing that case next week, Wednesday of next week,
04:01as to whether, you know, Trump can use that as a basis to get rid of Lisa Cook. That will be a
04:07very, very important decision.
04:09Can you put the genie back in the bottle? Can faith in the U.S. institutions,
04:17in its justice system be restored, no matter what happens in 2026 and 2028?
04:26Look, you ask a really important question, one on which I've written and gave a lot of thought.
04:31And the only honest answer is, I do not know. There's an article in today's New York Times
04:36correlating the decisions that are coming out of the federal courts against the, whether or not
04:43Trump appointed the judges. Okay? That didn't used to be. It used to be that you didn't really
04:49know or care who appointed the judges, because they're all independent. Now, unfortunately,
04:53there's a very strong correlation. Trump appoints judges, they back them up. What does that do?
04:59That goes to the heart of your point, namely, the lack of credibility in the system.
05:05And I think it's going to take a long while, more than the mid-teams, to get that back.
05:12But is that any different from when Supreme Court justices sparred with President Roosevelt during
05:19the New Deal of the 1930s, or when a 5-4 Supreme Court refused to allow a recount in Florida in the
05:27year 2000? Well, again, you raise a good question. I don't have easy answers to that. All I can tell you
05:34is this is kind of an area where I think and work and write a lot. And I think it is different because
05:38it's so hoarse. It's just the position that the Trump administration is taking in the Supreme Court
05:45next year, next week, in the Cook case, goes way beyond anything that Roosevelt ever would have
05:51dared raise, let alone anybody else. He's basically saying, you and the Supreme Court, stay out of this.
05:57You know, my control over the Fed is not only right, but I get to declare it's right, and you can't even
06:04issue an opinion on that. So, look, I just feel very strongly that the attack we're seeing now
06:09lacks historical precedent.
06:13Frederick Davis, so many thanks for joining us from New York.
06:17Always a pleasure.
06:18Stay with us. There's more to come. More news, plus the day's business and sports.
06:22We'll see you next time.
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