Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman mentioned Monday that staff on the Justice Division are “really afraid” of what a second Trump time period will imply for the division.
“We have a really demoralized career staff, people putting their resumes on the street, people being really afraid of what Trump’s entry will mean for the storied DOJ function of doing justice without fear or favor,” Litman, who served as a deputy assistant basic from 1993 to 1998, advised CBS’s Ed O’Keefe.
“This is the worst crisis I’ve ever seen in DOJ history,” he added in remarks highlighted by Mediaite.
Litman’s feedback come on the heels of remarks made by former Florida lawyer basic Pam Bondi, who was tapped by President-elect Trump to run the DOJ, calling for an investigation of prosecutors who “weaponized” the authorized system in opposition to Trump.
“The Department of Justice — the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated because the deep state, last term for President Trump, they were hiding in the shadows,” Bondi mentioned on the time, throughout an interview on Fox Information. “But now they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated.”
Requested by O’Keefe earlier if DOJ staff will simply settle for Trump’s adjustments as a “we just gotta do what the rules say,” form of scenario, Litman pushed again.
“This is not a “Them’s the rules as usual” kind of situation,” he replied. “You know, it’s not simply these cases falling apart, but the assertion of the power just from the president to make them fall apart and other things that are contemplated for the DOJ.”
The remarks comply with the Washington Put up’s report that Trump plans to fireplace “the entire team that worked with special counsel Jack Smith to pursue two federal prosecutions against the former president.” The information got here days earlier than Smith and Choose Tanya Chutkan moved to dismiss Trump’s federal election interference and categorized paperwork circumstances.
The president-elect additionally plans to create investigative groups throughout the DOJ to search for proof of fraud in battleground states that might have impacted that 2020 election, in line with The Put up.
