Jeff Clark Responds to Attorney General Merrick Garland's Claims of DOJ Neutrality

the speech at the Department of Justice yesterday us attorney general Merrick Garland praised his Department's staff for sustaining what he called the set of norms to guide the Justice Department's adherence to the rule of law well among the Norms is to not allow the Department of Justice to be used as a political weapon but the justice department under attorney general Garland uh at least has drawn repeated criticism for both being weaponized against political enemies as well as perpetrating a two-tiered system of justice so what is the Department of Justice Done to keep its promise to not be weaponized well joining me now to discuss this is Jeff Clark he's a senior fellow and director of litigation at the center for renewing America Jeff welcome back to Washington watch always great to have you well thanks a lot Jody it's good to be here and uh talking about this spe that Garland gave yesterday is going to be a treat I think yeah I do too and I don't know if anybody who can break it down any better than you can for us I want to begin with a clip and and get your reaction to this uh if we can let's let's begin with clip number four please our Norms are a promise that we will not allow this department to be used as a political weapon and our Norms are a promise that we will not not allow this nation to become a country where law enforcement is treated as an apparatus of politics all right our Norms or a promise your reaction to this look uh Jody the Constitution is our ultimate source of law it is the superseding source of law federal statutes come next in the hierarchy right then you could look at Federal Regulations uh on down but Norms are not uh really on my hierarchy list of legal uh binding legal authorities because Norms are not the Constitution they're not a statute uh they're not regulations and so I you know I regard this as as me actually having won the argument because I put out a a paper uh quite a while ago now on the center for renewing uh America's website called the doj is not independent and you know faced a lot of initial skepticism uh because of the fact that after Watergate they really did try to establish this idea that the justice department was independent of the president which is totally contrary to the Constitution the Constitution provides that the chief law enforcement officer of the United States or what the framers in The Federalist Papers called the chief magistrate not just the commander-in-chief but the chief magistrate is the president of the United States and him alone there is no reference to an attorney general in the Constitution the the Attorney General was created as a Cabinet officer very early but the department was not created until uh you know the second half of the 19th century so the idea that that its Norms control over the Constitution control over statutes is is totally wrong and so you have to start asking yourself well what are these Norms these Norms were set up essentially to try to strip power away from the president of the United States to create an uh unaccountable bureaucracy inside the justice department and that's why we have all these problems because the president can't supervise these things now it's convenient for a Democrat president like Joe Biden or would be convenient for a kamla Harris God forbid if she were to be elected because they're very happy with what the predominantly Democrat career staff want to do and as you pointed out the department under Merck Garland and under Joe Biden has been completely politicized and we know that Joe Biden sent them love notes from time to time through at the very least the uh the New York Times but also I think through his White House Council so the idea that the that they have cut the president off from supervising the department is also a myth however you look at it this is you know a a a misbegotten system at this point it needs to be changed and they're big- time afraid of the fact that if president Donald J Trump returns to the White House that he is going to get constitutional control of the justice department again and that is not using it as a political weapon that just means that the president he's the one who's accountable to the people and he's going to make them accountable to him oh and of course they're already accusing Trump if he were to regain the White House that he is going to weaponize the Department of Jus I mean these people always seem to accuse others of the very things they themselves are guilty of I I love what you brought up about the chief magistrate that's probably information that most people are not aware of a great great point there let me play another clip uh play clip two and then I'd like to get your reaction to this one as well there is not one rule for friends and another for foes one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless one rule for the rich and another for the poor one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans or different rules depending on one's race or ethnicity all right so I don't know how he says it says it I mean we have the face Act we've got prosecution of peaceful protesters at abortion clinics we have parents being targeted for speaking at school boards uh we have failure to enforce federal statute against uh protesters harassing uh conservative Supreme Court Justices at their homes uh lawfare against the president I mean the the these just a few examples uh are we seeing similar efforts against those on the left or is this all seemingly directed towards those on the the right I think it's virtually all directed uh toward those on the right Jody and clearly that's a violation of equal protection they they try to just create these new Norms that in some instances are trying to recreate what we already have right we have a 14th amendment that guarantees equal protection now that applies to the States but there it's caused the Supreme Court to basically say there's an equal protection component to the due process clause in the Fifth Amendment which does apply to the federal government so doj obviously shouldn't be going around and saying we're going to prosecute only Republicans or only Democrats but if you look at what they do in practice they have definitely dropped the hammer on Republicans conservatives Maga people and you know the the the slaps on the wrisk go to antifa they go to the uh Hunter bidens of the world I mean had uh the judge not called foul a very sweetheart plea deal that basically would have wrapped up all of the alleged crimes against Hunter Biden would have been entered and you know they had to to take a step back from that and then proceed more even-handedly against him in multiple cases but that just goes to show you they they try to do some things that make it look like they're being even-handed like they dropped an indictment against a Chinese woman in New York associated with Governor hokel but I think that was all an advanced cover operation because they really wanted to focus on their so-called next Russia gate issue against tenant media and Lauren Chen and conservative influencers who uh you know were involved somehow with tenant media that's their main operation to try to skew the election and they violate equal protection uh issues all of the time it's totally unconstitutional and it's Lawless let me let me let me lay the plane here we got less than a minute here uh Jeff but uh when when attorney general Garland talks about the his Department acts without fear or favor how how do you take that and really in a minute are they just are they authentically calling balls and strikes or something else going on here I don't think so Jody and let me use the example of parents at school boards because I was at doj uh you know as freshly minted political appointee as a young man at doj on 911 and a few years after that we established the seventh litigating division at the justice department the National Security division that was designed to go after International terrorists and to prot us from International foreign threats that same division and its counterpart in the FBI was used to go after parents because they were upset with transgender bathrooms wow Jeff Clark thank you so much uh incredible information thank you for keeping a PS on it appreciate you being on Washington watch this evening