00:00Mr. Blanche in the Department of Justice, and we were met with gaslighting, we were met with Mr. Blanche talking
00:10around our questions instead of answering them, and we walked away with a feeling of, the best word that I
00:18can use is demoralization, because he did not.
00:22Ms. Stein, were you one of the people who met with Todd Blanche after his confirmation hearing, and he was
00:30exhorted to meet with the victims?
00:32Yes, I was.
00:34Yes?
00:35Yes.
00:36So, how did you feel? I mean, how would you describe how he, what his attitude was toward all of
00:42you in the meeting?
00:44Well, I want to preface this by saying that we have been requesting meetings with the DOJ for months, and
00:52they have not indulged us, or given us any indication that they would indulge us.
00:58And so, it wasn't lost on us that this meeting happened only after Senator Tillis made it a requirement of
01:07Todd Blanche's promotion.
01:11During his confirmation hearing, I asked whether his, Todd Blanche's attitude to our victims was one of dismissiveness.
01:20Would you say that that is a good way to describe his behavior toward you during the meeting?
01:26We had approximately four hours to prepare for this meeting, and we did so.
01:31We went into that meeting in good faith with the hopes of working with Mr. Blanche in the Department of
01:40Justice, and we were met with gaslighting.
01:45We were met with Mr. Blanche talking around our questions instead of answering them, and we walked away with a
01:53feeling of, the best word that I can use is demoralization,
01:58because he did not come into that meeting looking to work with us in good faith.
02:05I think the thing that also is frightening to me is that if you have watched people who prosecuted cases
02:13against people who stormed the Capitol of the United States,
02:15beat police officers with an inch of their lives, and then get fired for no other reason but that they
02:21were affiliated with these cases,
02:23I guess I want to ask you is, if somebody gets credible evidence about a powerful person connected to the
02:31president
02:32and thinks about, wow, there is evidence here of a crime that I should investigate,
02:38is it reasonable for me to suspect that if it was somebody powerful that is connected to the president
02:46or, God forbid, a national security issue involving his family members who are doing something overseas,
02:53that you would have people within the Justice Department who would fear pursuing the facts or a case in this
03:03matter
03:03because it could mean they're summarily being fired?
03:08Yeah, that is a fear.
03:10I think that there is a growing incentive to not pursue challenging cases like that
03:17for fear of how that would affect your career.
03:21And what does that do, in your opinion, to the pursuit of public corruption?
03:26And no side of the political spectrum has a monopoly on public corruption,
03:32but what does that do for public corruption cases within the Trump administration?
03:39I think they're largely nonexistent.
03:42The public integrity section has gone from over 30 people to two.
03:47I don't know what those two people are doing in regard to cases.
03:53And so the ability to bring public corruption cases
03:57just is not an enforcement priority of this administration at the moment.
04:04Subscribe to OneIndia and never miss an update.
04:08Download the OneIndia app now.
Comments